An actual property funding group intends to take the location of an unfinished nuclear plant and switch it right into a superior manufacturing campus anchored by Highland Supplies, a brand new polysilicon producer.
Roughly 140 acres on the former Phipps Bend Nuclear Plant in Hawkins County, Tennessee, is deliberate to turn out to be a “high-power, heavy infrastructure vacation spot.” The positioning already has a TVA-owned regional transmission interconnect and a 1-MW solar project that was completed in 2017.
An unfinished nuclear reactor at Phipps Bend, with the photo voltaic array behind.
“We’re honored to be investing behind the expansion of Northeast Tennessee at such a novel website at Phipps Bend. This campus combines placing mission crucial infrastructure, a uncommon high-voltage interconnect and a allowing atmosphere formed by its nuclear legacy – all inside a area desirous to welcome transformational capital funding,” mentioned David Robbins, Managing Companion of Pivotal Manufacturing Partners. “We’re proud to be partnering with Highland Supplies to advance their deliberate facility and look ahead to persevering with to work with all of our native companions as Phipps Bend emerges as a premier vacation spot for this subsequent technology high-power industrial renaissance.”
Initially developed by the TVA within the late Seventies as a nuclear energy facility, the Phipps Bend website noticed over $2.6 billion in federal funding earlier than the challenge was canceled within the early Eighties previous to completion after the Three Mile Island incident. Whereas no reactors had been ever introduced on-line, the location retains a strong legacy: important utility infrastructure, a strategic location throughout the TVA transmission community and a regional growth mindset rooted in energy-intensive trade.
Highland Supplies has been rumored to website its brand-new polysilicon product plant on the Phipps Bend website for not less than the final 12 months. The corporate was allotted $255.6 million in Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credits (48C) from the Inflation Discount Act final 12 months. It was then said that it could initially produce 16,000 metric tons yearly of solar-grade polysilicon earlier than increasing to twenty,000 metric tons — or the equal of 11 GW of photo voltaic cells yearly.
“Partnering with Pivotal Manufacturing Companions is a crucial step wanted to maneuver the Highland polysilicon manufacturing facility ahead at Phipps Bend,” mentioned Richard Rast, CEO of Highland Materials. “We’re excited concerning the market alternative, the job creation, the capital funding, and the continued neighborhood and state degree assist this challenge enjoys.”
Pivotal and Highland are working carefully with native, regional, and federal stakeholders — together with Hawkins County, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Holston Electrical Cooperative and the State of Tennessee — to ship infrastructure, incentives, and financial growth to assist each near-term and long-term phases of the campus.
