Battery manufacturer KORE Power Inc. is walking away from its plan to build a $1.25-billion plant in Buckeye, Ariz., a move that prompted the canceled project's contractor, W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co., to claim it is still owed more than $10 million.

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho-based KORE announced its plan in 2021 to build a 1.3-million-sq-ft lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant named “the KOREPlex” on the 214-acre site west of Phoenix. At the time, it said it planned to begin production as soon as 2023. With a capacity of 12 GWh, KORE said the plant would have been able to produce enough batteries for 3.2 million homes annually. 

Later, KORE revised its timeline, saying it would begin construction in 2023 with a targeted completion date in 2025. The company also announced in 2023 that it had received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Loan Programs Office for an $850-million loan to help fund the project. 

KORE did not immediately respond to inquiries about the project. In a statement to the Arizona Republic newspaper, the company said it “has recently undertaken a restructuring to provide more benefit to our customers and position ... for long-term success,” confirming it was not moving forward with the Buckeye KOREPlex. 

The Arizona site has already been listed for sale. Marketing materials tout the property as “prime for high-tech manufacturing development” and note it already has a 900,000-sq-ft engineered building pad. 

Yates filed a lien notice with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office Jan. 15. In the filing, the contractor says it is owed about $10.4 million for work that it and various subcontractors performed before KORE canceled the project. The firm did not immediately respond to inquiries, but in the filing it says it finished site work last September. 

Lindsay Gorrill, who was CEO of KORE, also recently announced on LinkedIn that he was stepping down from the role and that company President Jay Bellows was taking over the chief executive job. 

In an interview with clean energy-focused news outlet Canary Media, Bellows said KORE is looking for an existing manufacturing site it can retrofit, rather than building a new structure. 

Energy Dept. officials were also unable to finalize the loan before the start of the Trump administration, which does not share the Biden administration clean energy and electric vehicle goals, according to the report. 

The status of the canceled project loan award is unclear, as is any connection between the loan uncertainty and the project halt.