The Biden administration is poised to loan nearly $671 million to Aspen Aerogels Inc. to make a key component of electric car batteries in the election battleground state of Georgia.

Aspen Aerogel shares surged as much as 20 percent in New York. 

The conditional financing, being announced Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Department, will fund construction of a new manufacturing plant producing thermal barriers that help prevent battery fires. It’s part of President Joe Biden’s push to build a domestic supply chain for electric vehicles and the advanced batteries that power them.

“We are making sure that the supply side is made here in this country,” Jigar Shah, director of the Energy Department Loan Programs Office, said in an interview. “We have taken very seriously the onshoring of the entire supply chain.” 

Although such events are rare, the cells within lithium-ion batteries can overheat and cause adjacent cells to do the same, leading to a fire. Aspen, based in Massachusetts, has contracts to supply its thermal barriers to General Motors, Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers. The new plant — to be located in Register, near Savannah — is expected to supply enough barriers for over 2 million electric vehicles annually. 

Aspen has invested $300 million in the approximately $1 billion facility and plans to complete construction by late 2026 or early 2027, said Chief Executive Officer Donald Young. The funding from the Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, he said, was critical for the relatively small and fast-growing company.

“It’s a little hard to imagine how we’d do this without the support of the LPO program,” Young said in an interview. “Having access to this level of capital would be challenging for us.” 
 

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