Lithium-ion battery storage company BSS Global Inc. and Nevada’s Redwood Materials are building new manufacturing sites at Camp Hall Commerce Park in Ridgeville, SC. BSS Global will invest more than $30 million in the new build at Camp Hall Commerce Park.
The property, off Interstate 26, is known as Campus 7. BSS Global has purchased 14.6 acres of the site for $4.23 million. The new development is expected to bring at least 80 new clean energy jobs.
Anode and cathode battery component manufacturer Redwood Materials has also announced plans to establish operations at the Berkeley County site. The $3.5 billion Redwood investment is the largest economic development announcement in the history of the Palmetto State, slated to create 1,500 jobs.
Photo Courtesy Camp Hall
“Redwood Materials’ record-breaking announcement shows that our state’s strategic plan to remain a top destination for automobile manufacturers and their suppliers as the industry innovates is working,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in a statement. “This $3.5 billion investment, and the 1,500 jobs it will create in Berkeley County, is a transformative accomplishment that can only be attributed to the strong, talented, hardworking South Carolinians who make our state as great as it is.”
The Camp Hall site has various developmental deals in progress and offers large warehouses, a distribution center for consumer products firm Unilever Manufacturing, and a computing data center.
The site is particularly inviting for new development as it rarely requires companies to set up their infrastructure because roads, water, and sewers are already in place.
Most of the Camp Hall site, adjacent to a 2,800-acre Volvo Cars campus, will be kept as natural areas with walking and biking trails. The industrial park will also feature the 114-acre Avian Commons, including a park with a soccer field, a pavilion, and many goods and services stores for employees. There are more than 100 acres still available for sale at the location.
“South Carolina’s commitment to creating a secure energy future and a competitive landscape for electric vehicle manufacturing, supported by a world-class workforce, fast and efficient logistics, zero-carbon electricity, and a phenomenal site, made it a smart decision for Redwood to invest here,” JB Straubel, Redwood Materials founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Together, BSS Global and Redwood will have a substantial economic impact on South Carolina. In addition to more than a thousand new clean energy jobs, the trickle-down impact is expected to be in the millions.
Redwood will use 100% clean energy and no wastewater at the new location. Additionally, each company is building parts and components critical to the United States’ move to clean energy and the country’s 2050 net-zero emissions goal.
Photo Courtesy Camp Hall
“The beauty of these [components] is that they can be infinitely recycled,” Alexis Georgeson, vice president of communications and government relations for Redwood Materials, said at a February breakfast hosted by the Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce. “At a certain point where our population starts (swapping) an internal combustion engine for an electric vehicle — and if you believe that at some point, we will all be driving electric vehicles — we can hit a plateau where we’re recycling one vehicle to create a new vehicle, and we’re no longer having to mine these materials [from the Earth]. That’s really a future that we firmly believe is not too far off.”
