EnerG2 kicks off production in Albany

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Energ2 CEO Rick Luebbe said the global market for carbon material like the Albany plant will produce is worth $2 billion.

Energy storage company EnerG2 cut the ribbon on a new manufacturing facility in Albany Monday, aiming to boost new hires amid fanfare that drew local, state, national and congressional leaders to town.

The company is based in Seattle and focused on manufacturing nano-structured materials for next-generation energy storage applications. Its Albany facility, which broke ground in 2010, is the first manufacturing plant in the world dedicated to the commercial-scale production of engineered carbon material.

EnerG2 officials say the synthetic carbon will improve the performance of ultracapacitors and batteries, and replaces carbon otherwise mined from agricultural waste like coconuts, which is ill-suited to energy applications.

“As the rapid advancement of semiconductors enabled the revolution of the high-tech industry, continued applications of our carbon technology platform enable the energy storage revolution,” said CEO Rick Luebbe.

EnerG2 reports involvement with more than 60 significant companies focused on energy storage application development, companies they say will be more capable of deploying and developing energy storage ideas with synthetic carbon available.

The company employs 43 workers, 35 of them in Albany, and will continue to hire as production at the facility increases.

EnerG2 is the brainchild of Stanford University business school graduates Rick Luebbe, CEO, and Chris Wheaton, CFO and COO, who, after meeting at an alumni event in Seattle, drew on high-tech backgrounds and an interest in renewable energy to partner with Dr. Aaron Feaver, formerly a doctoral student in the University of Washington’s Material Science department to manufacture nano-materials.

EnerG2 has been developing the $28.4 million facility in Albany since 2009, when it received a $21.3 million grant for the project from the U.S. Department of Energy. EnerG2 was well positioned to capture the support. The U.S. Department of Energy’s goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 has led to critical investments in component technology.

Ed Owens, supervisor for hybrid systems and materials technology for the Vehicle Technologies Program at the U.S. Department of Energy, said the national goal is intended to reduce dependence on foreign oil, 70 percent of which flows to transportation.

“To reduce our dependence on foreign oil we have to reduce our transportation demand,” he said, which means assuring, not only that hybrid and electric vehicles are produced in the United States, but that components are also manufactured in sufficient quantity to support the growing industry.

The EnerG2 facility landed in Albany through an early partnership with Oregon Freeze Dry, supported by late president Herb Aschkenasy. The company helped to prove the EnerG2 concept by assisting with freeze drying, a key phase in processing the synthetic carbon.

Albany Mayor Sharon Konopa said she was overjoyed to see the facility open – and create jobs. “It’s really putting a lot of smiles on people’s faces in our community, which is really needed,” she said.

That support was echoed by Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio, a democrat, who applauded the federal investment in the company.

“I think and hope we learned our lesson from some of our past successes that we passed on overseas,” he said. “Now we have an opportunity to husband a technology,” that puts people to work, fights the country’s deficit and keeps America competitive in the world.

“I look forward to seeing the facility grow,” he said.

Luebbe said the facility has a 20 metric tons and the ability to run four shifts daily. He said EnerG2 has a goal to increase production four-fold in four years.

“By 2016 we think there is at least a $2 billion global market for carbon material,” he said.

Lee van der Voo, lvdvoo*at*gmail.com, is a freelance writer for Sustainable Business Oregon.