Juicy

LG invests $5.2B in batteries, but it's juicing up for more than just electric cars

Snacks / Thursday, July 15, 2021

From toothpaste to smartphones… Korean conglomerate LG makes just about everything. It also owns one of the world’s largest manufacturers of car batteries: LG Energy. LG Chem, its parent company, brought in $27.1B in revenue last year, and has sealed car battery deals with GM, Tesla, and Volkswagen. Now, it's juicing up with a $5.2B investment in its battery materials biz.

Not just Tesla juice… Thanks to government subsidies and clean energy concerns, demand for EV batteries is soaring. But battery behemoths like LG have their eyes set on more than just EVs. They want to service the entire renewable energy industry by fixing its storage problem.

  • The Problem: "Intermittency." That's when solar panels stop generating electricity on cloudy days, or wind turbines slow down in less-gusty weather.
  • The Solution: Gigantic, factory-sized batteries that save up energy to use on a (literal) rainy day. LG has already installed utility-scale batteries across the US, including at the world’s largest battery storage complex in CA.

Big batteries = big potential… EV batteries are top of mind for consumers, but utility-scale batteries are a massive opportunity for renewable energy infrastructure. They solve the "intermittency problem" for companies and governments that are setting ambitious carbon-reduction goals. Bigger batteries could also mean bigger business: the global market for energy storage is expected to hit $426B in the next decade.

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