Battery maker Amprius details Brighton factory plans

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Amprius Technologies, the Fremont, Calif.-based lithium-ion battery manufacturer that plans to occupy an empty warehouse in Brighton, has already talked about how much they plan to invest in the community and how many jobs they plan to bring.

But one question they’ve been answering lately is how safe their operation will be. Company CEO Kang Sun said he wants to assure Brighton the factory will be safe.

“This is a highly regulated industry and we cannot afford to make any error,” Sun said. “One big error and our company will be gone. So we are taking this very, very seriously for our employees, our labor groups and our neighbors.”

The company announced in March its intention to occupy the empty former Sears/KMart distribution center on Bromley Lane, setting up their new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in the 775,000-square-foot building. Their first phase would create 332 net new jobs in Brighton with an average annual wage of $68,516.

Amprius plans to invest $190 million, including a $50 million cost-sharing grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains.

Andrew Huie, Amprius’ vice president of infrastructure, said the company still needs zoning approval from the City of Brighton and permits from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. They plan to submit their applications to the state this fall, with tentative zoning reviews with the Brighton Planning Commission in July and the City Council in August. They’d hope to be operating by the beginning of 2024.

Moving into an already-existing building is a bonus for the company.

“We’ve already confirmed there is enough electricity for the first phase of our project and we will be building out the interior space of the structure,” Huie said. “Most of the construction we need to do will be inside the building.”

Understanding the process

The facility would be located at 18875 Bromley Lane, just 600 feet south of Brighton’s Mt. Princeton St. and homes in the surrounding Brighton Crossings neighborhood and due north of Brighton’s water

LINDA SHAPLEY Publisher lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

MICHAEL DE YOANNA Editor-in-Chief michael@coloradocommunitymedia.com treatment plant. Neighbors have made their fears of fires and pollution clear at Brighton City Council meetings.

Huie said company officials have met with neighbors and other concerned Brighton residents since they announced their plans in March. They’ve hosted two neighborhood meetings at the Brighton Armory and have met one-on-one with several neighbors, Huie said, and more meetings are scheduled.

“One of the reasons why people are nervous is that they don’t understand the process and our business, so that’s why we are doing community outreach,” Huie said. “We want to educate them on what we are doing and how we are mitigating the concerns they bring to the table.”

Lithium-ion batteries have been the news lately, with fires in battery-powered E-bikes and cars, but Kang said most of the danger comes from mishandling and overcharging by users. He notes that his factory would not manufacture charged batteries, but empty batteries waiting for users to charge them.

“In the fires, you’ll see that the battery quality is one factor and battery misuse is another,” Kang said. “They can be overcharged or damaged, like when a car crashes. But Amprius has passed U.S. military specifications. We are

TERESA ALEXIS Marketing Consultant Classified Sales talexis@coloradocommunitymedia.com very safe. And I have not heard of a fire inside a battery factory in four years. I have never heard of a battery factory fire.”

Even so, the warehouse’s interior space would be divided into smaller, fire-resistant rooms for making and storing the empty batteries and the factory will have a state-of-the-art fire suppression system.

“So we will have many engineering controls in place to help manage risks,” Huie said. “We will have four-hour-rated firewalls down to one-hour-rated walls all separating the different hazard classifications. We have high-tech fire suppression and fire detection systems as well. We will be coordinating all of this with Brighton’s Fire Department so they understand what have at the facility, the hazards as well as the suppression systems.”

Kang said he expects the company’s initial customers will be the aviation industry, providing rechargeable battery power for military pseudo-satellites and highaltitude unmanned aircraft. He also sees a market for his batteries in Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft. Someday, as soon as 2025 he said, it will be possible to take an electrically powered air taxi from Denver International Airport to downtown Denver. He wants his company’s batteries to power those vehicles.

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