GE charges up its battery strategy with NY sodium plant

General Electric (GE) provided a further boost to New York State's burgeoning battery industry yesterday with the announcement it is to build a $100m manufacturing facility in Upstate New York to make sodium cells.

The engineering conglomerate's transportation arm unveiled plans for the new factory, which will make high energy-density batteries that are designed for a variety of transport and other uses.

GE chair and chief executive Jefrey Immelt said the batteries would be used in the rail, mining and marine industries, and would also appeal to utility customers, and even as backup cells for data centres. "We believe this kind of technology will create $500m in sales by 2015, and build into a billion-dollar franchise for us over time," said Immelt.

The factory, due be fully operational by mid-2011, will create 350 new jobs and will have a capacity of ten million cells, totalling 900MW of energy, the company said.

This is the second big battery announcement for New York State in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the state announced a new battery and energy storage technology consortium – New York BEST – and distributed $25m in funding from the Clean Air Interstate Program (CAIR) to foster the development of advanced battery technologies in the state.

"New York should be at the centre of an advanced global economy based on innovation and technology," said New York Governor David Paterson. "We have the intellectual capital and the best institutions for that."

He added that limited fossil fuel resources were also a driver for the state's battery activities. "It's going to become necessary, not only because of fluctuating prices of traditional fuels but also because of their increased lack of availability. There is a great deal of research now on how difficult it is to refine coal and oil."

GE's latest announcement is also further evidence of the company's growing commitment to battery technologies. Last month, it invested $15m in lithium battery vendor A123, which has emerged in recent years as a major supplier of battery technologies to electric car manufacturers.

Immelt explained that developing both lithium and sodium-based batteries would allow the company to extend the number of technical applications its batteries can support. "Lithium provides power, sodium provides storage, and the combination of these technologies will find great fits, perhaps even in plug-in electric vehicles over time," he predicted.