The Philippines will have its first phosphate battery manufacturing plant with the opening of the StB Giga plant in Tarlac City.
The project is the result of an alliance between the governments of the Philippines and Australia and a product of a successful Public-Private Partnership (PPP).
It is one of the pledges secured during the Philippine Business Forum on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Australia Special Summit last March.
The StB Giga Factory is the country’s first manufacturing plant of advanced lithium iron phosphate batteries, often used in renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) industries, with a total of P7 billion project cost.
It’s funded by the StB Capital Partners, a venture capital firm based in Brisbane, Australia. It will start its commercial operations next month and is expected to create 2,500 direct and indirect jobs.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., who led the launching of the facility, described it as a “major investment in a very critical industry.”
StB is reportedly eyeing two more buildings after the Tarlac City facility.
Marcos said the plant will support the country’s growing electric vehicle (EV) market, further reducing reliance on imported fuels.
Earlier, StB GigaFactory, a battery manufacturer funded by an Australian investment company, disclosed its plan to ramp up its investment in the Philippines by more than threefold, its chief executive officer Dennis Chan Ibarra said.
Ibarra said in an interview during the One Clark Forum Friday last week that the company hiked the investment in its first Philippine factory to $35 million (P2 billion).
StB GigaFactory produces batteries for energy storage backup for solar photovoltaic for residential, commercial, and industrial uses.
The battery manufacturer is building its facility at the Filinvest Innovation Park (FIP) in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac.
StB GigaFactory is also the first locator in Filinvest Land, Inc.’s project in New Clark City, the flagship project of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA).
“We’re going to accelerate our plans to triple the volume to 2,000 megawatts. So it’s two gigawatt hours. So that’s world-class scale,” Ibarra said.
He said the company initially targeted to attain the 2 GwH capacity within four years “and it could be accelerated” depending on the market demand.
“By next year, we’ll have one-third of it running,” he said, adding that the factory will have a total production capacity of around 670 MW.
Ibarra said the StB GigaFactory eyes to export 70 percent of its output, with the first shipment from the factory going to Australia and Southeast Asian countries, also serving the Philippine market.
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