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Two Berkshire Hathaway companies, Timet and BHE Renewables, are teaming up to power a large industrial titanium processing facility via a solar microgrid. Titanium Metals Corporation, or Timet, recently began construction on a facility that will process titanium into parts for airplanes and other uses. Next door to the new facility, BHE Renewables is preparing to install arrays of solar panels and large battery systems that will form a solar microgrid that connects to the titanium facility.
Titanium is a durable, highly corrosion-resistant metal that’s used in everything from industrial applications — airplane wings, hydrogen electrolyzers, nuclear waste tanks, military armor — to high-end consumer products like golf clubs, wristwatches, and iPhones. Demand for titanium products is rising in the U.S., driven largely by the aerospace and defense industries.
As a metal, titanium is twice as strong as aluminum and weighs nearly half as much as steel, while still having a similar strength. But transforming titanium minerals into a sturdy metal requires enormous amounts of electricity, which drives up the overall cost, so titanium is mainly used in applications for which there are no viable substitutes or in luxury goods.
Competition from lower-cost imports and slumping metal prices globally made it difficult for U.S. producers to keep making titanium sponge domestically. Rising energy costs also strained operations — as they have for other energy-intensive industries, including domestic aluminum production. Today, China and Russia together control around 70 percent of the world’s market for primary titanium.
Timet’s new plant will include two types of electricity-driven furnaces to generate intense heat for melting titanium sponge and scrap. Initially, the melting plant is expected to need around 18 megawatts of power to operate, before ramping up to its full capacity of 106 MW by the end of 2027.
The solar microgrid is intended to scale up in lockstep with Timet’s operations. When fully built, the BHE Renewables project will include a 106 MW solar array and a battery energy storage system with a capacity of 50 MW, or 260.5 megawatt-hours. The batteries will likely deploy lithium iron phosphate technology, a lower-cost chemistry that’s catching on for stationary storage.
The solar-plus-battery system is designed to provide the consistent, reliable power supply that melting furnaces require — and at a cost comparable to traditional power sources. Building an on-site microgrid is also intended to improve “time to power,” or the amount of time it takes to build and connect energy resources. Today, connecting solar, wind, and storage projects directly to the electrical grid can take years, owing to the growing backlog of new energy projects seeking transmission connections.
Learn more about Global Industrial Sustainability and Energy Transition.