Electrovaya, a developer and manufacturer of portable lithium-ion batteries, is expected to be the new tenant of the former Acu-Rite building at 1 Precision Way, Ellicott.

That is believed to be the case after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a hydropower allotment to Electrovaya from the Niagara Power Project through the New York Power Authority.

Electrovaya, a developer and manufacturer of portable lithium-ion batteries, is planning a 135,000 square-foot expansion project in the city to operate lithium-ion cell manufacturing and battery module assembly equipment. The hydropower allocation approved at Tuesday’s NYPA board meeting will support Electrovaya’s expansion, spurring $40 million in capital investments. According to NYSERDA, Electrovaya is proposing a manufacturing facility in Jamestown to make domestically produced cells and modules tailored for electric buses.

Electrovaya is expected to create 50 direct manufacturing jobs in Jamestown in its first year and has the potential, according to company officials, to expand to more than 300 jobs. County IDA officials said during a previous meeting that Sustainable Energy Jamestown may come back to the IDA once a tenant had been secured, so the Electrovaya project may come back to county development officials again. Mark Geise, county IDA director, described the new owners last month as “a group of investors that have been formed to purchase the building.”

The company is working to increase its financial viability, with revenue expected to double in 2022 to between $21 and $25 million.

March revenue increased 47% from 2022 to 2021 and purchase orders total $25 million (American). The company has also received a needed credit increase.

“It is anticipated that sales will grow rapidly in the second half of fiscal 2022 as production has ramped up to meet existing demand,” said Richard Halka, Electrovaya executive vice president and chief financial officer. “As Sankar (Das Gupta, Electrovaya chairman and CEO) has mentioned purchase orders in hand for delivery currently exceed $25 million (American) or $31.5 million (Canadian). As Sankar also mentioned, the impact of supply chain issues and inflationary pressures was evidenced in our gross margin for Q2 2022, 25% compared to 32% for Q2 2021. The decrease was due to a number of factors including inflationary pressures on material cost increased shipping on logistics costs and foreign exchange movements.”

Electrovaya has developed a proprietary lithium-ion battery technology possessing a combination of high energy capacity, long cycle life, and operational safety. The resulting battery systems are suited for vehicles operating over 12 hours per day and requiring at least one full charge cycle per day, including e-buses and e-trucks.

“Just today the bus market, the electric bus market, is a very small market compared to the materials handling market,” Das Gupta said during a recent earnings conference call. “The materials handling market it’s tens of billions of dollars. And the bus market — I know the press likes it and people like it because they can see buses running around every day. But it’s a very small market today. However, the market will grow quickly we hope as Washington D.C. and others places start opening up their — the demand to the climate change — various programs. So … our feeling is our technology should become the industry standard for any heavy-duty vehicles.”