COLUMBIA, S.C. — On Tuesday, the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness kicked off its SC Battery Symposium, an effort to focus on how to prepare South Carolina for a critical need involving electric technology.
It’s a two-day event happening at the University of South Carolina, which is trying to plan for how to prepare state workers and businesses for the manufacturing of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.
Over the next several years, companies are planning to create thousands of new jobs in the state in that sector.
Companies like Scout Motors, BMW, and AESC, an electric vehicle technology company, chose South Carolina as home of production. With them, comes thousands of new jobs that need to be filled. They all have something in common in addition to a need for workforce: batteries.
The companies coming to the Palmetto State need people like Braden Geliano and others like him to meet the demand for workers trained in technology like electric vehicle batteries.
Geliano is a rising sophomore majoring in information technology at USC, where he’s learning to work with a technology called Palmetto Automated Learning or “P.A.L.”, a robot dog from the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness.
“This robot is mainly used on the factory floor of a potential manufacturing plant,” Geliano said.
“So, this spot can go and detect safety hazards on the ground, tools or trash, and it can go ahead and autonomously pick it up and take it to a designated location and record the incident etc.,” Geliano said.
P.A.L. is even sent to grade schools to work with young students to inspire the next generation in the workforce to work with batteries and technology.
“Over the past few years with those record announcements, we’ve seen about $9.1 billion invested in more than 5000 jobs announced around the battery industry sector,” Susie Shannon said. She’s the CEO of SC Competes.
She said the battery industry is growing and changing. “As we see an increased global demand for electric, then we know that the electric battery that goes inside of a vehicle, as well as other vehicles, becomes even more important.”
She adds the hope is the SC Battery Symposium taking place this week at USC stresses the importance and future of battery production in South Carolina. The symposium continues Wednesday, May 15, at USC.