Battery maker relocating to Indy, planning more than 100-plus jobs

A Phoenix-based manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries is relocating its headquarters and operations to Indianapolis.

EnPower Inc. is moving into a facility previously operated by EnerDel Inc. on the city’s northeast side and plans to add more than 100 jobs by the end of the year, according to CEO Annette Finsterbusch.

Finsterbusch said the 8-year-old company is in the process of moving its headquarters and equipment from Phoenix to Indy and plans to begin manufacturing batteries in May.

About 20 employees are initially moving to Indianapolis, and Finsterbusch said the goal is to get to 150 employees by the end of this year. The company is hiring for a variety of positions, including production associates, engineers, and maintenance technicians.

In an interview, Finsterbusch said the move is part of an effort to increase battery production in the United States and fill a growing need.

“As we turned the corner in 2021, we really realized that our industry had taken on this incredible inflection point, and the battery electric vehicle market was taking all of the batteries out of the system,” Finsterbusch said. “So, many of the U.S. manufacturers of power tools and, for example, vertical takeoff and lift vehicles, they were basically left with nothing … and so, we realized that there was an opportunity for U.S. manufacturing, and we have a technology which is ready to go to market.”

EnPower acquired EnerDel’s pouch cell manufacturing line in December. As part of the sale, EnPower took over the plant at 8740 Hague Road and plans to modernize the nearly 100,000-square-foot facility with equipment upgrades, automation and additional assembly lines. The company said it will have the ability to produce up to 800-megawatt hours of advanced lithium-ion batteries per year.

The Indianapolis location will serve as a “customer qualification facility” where the company can scale production, complete comprehensive cell testing and secure sales agreements.

“We’re basically trying to sample to customers and ultimately create the long-term purchase agreements that will allow us to create a size–whether that’s 10 gigawatt hours or 30 gigawatt hours–for a plant that we plan to break ground on in Q4 of 2023, and that plant would be open in 2025, a much larger plant,” said Finsterbusch.