The renewable energy arm of Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) is building what it says will be the “world’s largest” solar and storage microgrid to power a new titanium plant being built in the US.
The titanium production facility is being built by Dallas, Texas-headquartered Titanium Metals (NYSE:TIE) on a 2,000-acre patch of land in Ravenswood, West Virginia that used to be the site of an aluminium manufacturing plant.
Titanium Metals is a subsidiary of Precision Castparts, which is also a Berkshire Hathaway owned company.
The titanium plant will source 70% of its electricity from a 106-megawatt solar array and 50MW battery energy storage system being built by Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) Renewables.
The battery energy storage system will use lithium iron phosphate battery technology because of its longer life span, lower maintenance requirements and reduced incidences of overheating.
All up, the manufacturing facility will make products for aerospace, defence, industrial and medical applications. Both the facility and microgrid are tipped to cost around $500 million.
The microgrid, which is being built in stages based on the facility’s power needs, will be owned and operated by BHE Renewables.
The titanium manufacturing facility is scheduled to be operational by early 2025, with the microgrid able to provide 18MW of solar to begin with.
Nebraska-headquartered Berkshire Hathaway, which has a market capitalisation of US$882 billion ($1.3 trillion) is one of the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 index and is a major conglomerate with a portfolio of companies across the insurance, energy generation, freight rail transport and utilities sectors.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
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