Malahat Nation takes the lead on a new state-of-the-art gigastorage factory on Vancouver Island

The Malahat Nation, in partnership with Energy Plug Technologies Corp, has started construction on a 100,000-square-foot battery energy storage manufacturing facility in Mill Bay, on Vancouver Island.

Announced earlier this year, work officially began last month following a ground blessing ceremony by the Nation’s Elders.

When complete, the facility will assemble five-kilowatt lithium iron phosphate battery packs for a variety of residential, commercial, and industrial applications using cells imported from Taiwan.

The project will be up and running by September 2025. Once fully operational, it will have the capacity to produce one gigawatt-hour of batteries annually.

The factory will be operated by Malahat Battery Technologies Limited Partnership., which is 51 per cent owned by Malahat Nation and 49 per cent by Energy Plug. The project’s $75-million price tag is financed by Malahat Nation, Energy Plug, the First Nations Finance Authority (a non-profit organization established to ensure First Nations’ access to long-term loans) and private investors.

First-of-its-kind

The plant will be the first Indigenous-led battery storage facility in Canada, says the Malahat Nation and Energy Plug.

“Malahat has known that power will be a constraint for development plans in the region since at least 2018,” explains Tristan Gale, Malahat Nation’s director of economic development, in an interview with Electric Autonomy.

“Since 2020, we’ve been pursuing the idea of grid-scale energy storage” (to enhance the community’s grid resilience).

A Coast Salish Indigenous community, Malahat Nation is one of the five Saanich Nations. The community is located on the western shore of Saanich Inlet amid rugged mountains and spectacular views. It is considered one of the most sacred sites on southern Vancouver Island.

But, like many remote communities, Malahat suffers from frequent power outages.

Gale points to a particularly bad interruption of service a few winters ago which lasted a week, leaving many residents without energy to cook their meals or heat their homes.

“That is a really good example of how having some grid-scale energy storage could help. The idea is to be more in control of the power distribution locally,” he says.

Grid-scale energy storage works by banking electricity during periods of low demand, releasing it as demand rises. With utility providers facing future increases in demand to power more and more electric vehicles, heat pumps, data centres and more, battery storage systems offer a cost-effective alternative to investing in expensive transmission infrastructure and upgrades to increase grid capacity and reliability.

EV application

The Malahat Nation’s new battery manufacturing plant joins a growing number of battery-related projects in Canada.

The majority of them are driven by multibillion-dollar investments from major international companies focused on strengthening the EV sector.

While the primary goal of the Malahat facility is to enhance the reliability of power grids and energy storage, Energy Plug, the B.C.-based energy technology company and minority partner in the project sees significant potential for its products to benefit the EV industry as well.

In an interview with Electric Autonomy, Broderick Gunning, CEO of Energy Plug, explains that battery storage offers solutions to many challenges in the EV industry.

“I was in the electric vehicle business… there’s a lack of infrastructure,” he says.

According to Gunning, there are two solutions: “One is that you upgrade your infrastructure or your power availability at that particular site. The second – which is what we’re suggesting – is to put a battery in there.” That, says Gunning, offers “the ability to essentially operate like you have a higher power capacity. A battery can balance the grid and distribute that power to the charging users.”

Battery storage: a crucial tool

There are numerous applications, says Gunning. With growing EV use, many residential buildings, especially multi-unit ones, are not able to support additional EV chargers. Efficient storage batteries would make up for the shortfall.

Battery storage could help on the road as well as at home.

For many potential EV buyers in Canada, the limited network of public charging stations and the anxiety of running out of charge on long trips is a major impediment to investing in an EV. Battery storage offers an affordable solution to expanding the number of charging stations, even in remote and underserved areas where setting up a conventional charging station is practically impossible.

Gunning also sees this battery technology as a crucial tool for commercial and industrial applications, particularly for businesses that use large amounts of power.

“You get to a certain point and your price of power becomes quite expensive per kilowatt hour,” he says. By integrating batteries into their operations, companies can store power when it’s cheapest and use it when prices peak.

Future of the Indigenous-led project

With the new battery facility set to be completed by the summer of 2025, production of the battery packs will begin in the fall.

The facility aims to roll out battery and energy storage systems by the first quarter of 2026.

Much of their product interest is coming from Ontario, Alberta and B.C., but they are also in “early talks” with some First Nations groups in the U.S. and New Zealand.

“I think the overall impact of this project is going to be something that at its core will benefit Malahat members through additional economic stability, sovereignty over decision-making, and employment opportunities,” says Gale.

“It’s taking a problem – not having enough energy infrastructure at Malahat – and turning it into an answer that’s bigger than Malahat,” by providing affordable energy storage technology to businesses, communities and, potentially First Nations around the world facing similar challenges.