Canadian long-duration energy storage company Zinc8 Energy Solutions plans to build its first factory in Kingston, N.Y., the company and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday.

The firm’s five-year, $68 million plan calls for it to be the anchor tenant in iPark87, a sprawling former IBM campus. The state will provide up to $9 million in tax credits through its Excelsior Jobs Program (EJP), contingent on Zinc8 creating up to 500 jobs there.

Zinc8 CEO Ron MacDonald announced in September that the company would set up manufacturing in the U.S. to take advantage of the recently approved Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits for domestic production of its zinc-air energy storage system.

The Zinc8 ESS is a modular design, adaptable to numerous configurations with the same subsystems. Because its capacity is determined solely by the size of the zinc storage tank, it is readily scalable from 20 kW to 50 MW and can provide eight or more hours power, the company says.

Zinc8, a small operation in Vancouver, is in the pre-commercial/demonstration phase of the technology for which it holds 21 patents and has five more patents pending. It hopes to begin production in 2024 and start scaling up in 2025.

The company has been on New York’s radar as the state moves to slash its carbon footprint and build a clean-energy economy.

The New York Power Authority selected it as a winner in an innovation challenge for its proposal to build a 100-kW/1-MWh demonstration project at the University at Buffalo, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority provided a grant to defray the cost of its 100-KW/1.5-MWh demonstration project at a New York City apartment complex.

The company joined Scale For ClimateTech, the New York City-based manufacturing accelerator supported by NYSERDA. And U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pitched the Kingston site to MacDonald in July 2022.

Hochul recently announced a goal of installing 6 GW of installed energy storage capacity in New York state. MacDonald said in a news release that New York’s push for green energy, and storage in particular, helped Zinc8 decide to locate its factory there.

“We’re excited by the level of support and interest we’ve received towards locating a manufacturing facility and creating jobs in the state of New York,” he said. “The EJP tax incentives offered to companies looking to create jobs and help build a green economy is an additional layer of funding that can be utilized concurrently with other financing, including state, municipal and federal funding packages, which help companies like Zinc8 access additional sources of capital and expand their business plans.”

“Creating good jobs that will lead to a greener, more sustainable New York for our children and grandchildren is not only beneficial to our economy; it’s the right thing to do for our planet,” Hochul said In her own news release. “Zinc8’s cutting edge, clean energy storage technology is another tool that will allow us to achieve our bold climate agenda and continue to make New York state a leader in advancing the green economy.”