ATLANTA – Georgia is continuing to attract suppliers for its growing renewable energy industries.
FREYR Battery, a Europe-based producer of next-generation battery cells, will build a manufacturing plant in Coweta County, a $2.57 billion investment that will create 723 jobs during the next seven years, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Friday.
“Job creators and innovators from all over the world bring their operations to Georgia because they know they will have success here,” Kemp said. “We’re proud to welcome FREYR to the Peach State as the latest company to bring transformational investments and opportunity to our communities.”
FREYR is dedicated to supporting a domestic supply chain for renewable power sources. The company’s battery cells can be used for stationary energy storage, electric mobility, and additional applications.
“At FREYR, we are deeply committed to the ambition we share with our U.S. partners to decarbonize the transportation and energy sectors,” said Tom Einar Jensen, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “As we advance our U.S. expansion plan in cooperation with our key stakeholders, we expect to make meaningful investments to spur job creation and the eventual development of localized, decarbonized supply chains in the U.S. to enhance energy security and economic activity.”
FREYR’s announcement comes as Georgia already is ramping up to become a leading producer of electric vehicles and EV batteries.
During the past year, Rivian and Hyundai have announced plans for huge EV manufacturing plants near Covington and Savannah, respectively, the two largest economic development projects in the state’s history. SK Innovation has built two EV battery manufacturing facilities in Northeast Georgia.
FREYR’s new facility, to be called Giga America, will have a planned first phase production of about 34 gigawatt hours. The company is currently evaluating clean power supply solutions for the new plant, including the potential use of renewable energy from solar installations.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Global Commerce team worked to land the project in partnership with the Coweta County Development Authority, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Georgia EMC, and the state Department of Labor’s Quick Start program.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A European-owned ammunition maker will build a new manufacturing, assembly, and distribution facility in Bryan County, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday.
Norma Precision, which established its North American headquarters near Savannah earlier this year, will invest $60 million and create 600 jobs with the Bryan County facility.
“Norma Precision is already hiring hardworking Georgians on our coast, and this new facility will support healthy communities across the Savannah area,” Kemp said.
The Bryan County operation will help the company continue to develop high-end ammunition to serve key markets in the hunting, sporting goods, military, and law enforcement sectors.
“This new facility offers Norma Precision a significant opportunity to expand our small arms ammunition manufacturing and distribution operations to meet our customer expectations in the United States and abroad,” said Paul Lemke, the company’s CEO.
Following completion of the new 300,000-square-foot facility, the company will move its Chatham County operations to Bryan County, the fastest-growing county in Georgia and the sixth-fastest growing in the nation. Current employees at the Chatham location will have the option of transferring to the new facility.
The Georgia Department of Economic Development worked in partnership on the project with the Development Authority of Bryan County, the Georgia Ports Authority, Georgia Power, and the state Department of Labor’s Quick Start program.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – A Georgia Senate committee focused on addressing homelessness heard Wednesday from a variety of Georgians who have directly experienced living on the streets.
Those who testified came from diverse backgrounds but shared the common experience of homelessness. They described in frank terms the challenges they faced in trying to bounce back.
“A lot of it was due to alcohol and drugs,” said Darlene Adair, explaining why she was homeless for around 20 years.
Adair now runs her own nonprofit and serves as an advisor to a major Atlanta nonprofit devoted to homelessness. She described being forced into uncomfortable situations just to be able to sleep in a car for a night.
Adair said that she thought a combination of a housing-first approach and “self-love” among people who are homeless are needed to solve the problem.
“Join [those] together – we can fix something that will work for everybody,” she said.
Homelessness has increased partly due to people’s struggles to earn enough to afford housing, Adair added.
Other people have faced serious mental health struggles that derailed promising life plans. For example, Kellie Bryson, who served in the U.S. Army, became homeless not long after she was discharged and ran out of savings. She said the experience only compounded her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“I found myself making the streets, parking lots, and parks of Atlanta,” said Bryson. “I lived in a constant state of fight or flight.”
Bryson said she initially reached out to some government resources for help but after not receiving any, she stopped asking for help. She said youth facing homelessness may distrust adults and lack access to information about resources.
Bryson now has housing and serves on the Atlanta Youth Action Board, which advises local groups about youth perspectives on homelessness.
The committee also heard witnesses from rural Georgia, where homelessness is a growing problem.
“What’s coming to our community is going to be devastating, because we simply have not prepared to mitigate the COVID needs for recovery as needed,” said Sherrell Byrd, founder and executive director of SOWEGA Rising, a Southwest Georgia group focused on organizing to improve local conditions.
Byrd said increasing housing, utility and food prices are making it difficult for many families to afford their rents or mortgage payments.
“These are the types of factors that are really impacting the lives of rural Georgians in a way that’s going to cause a serious wave of homelessness,” Byrd said.
Trista Wiggins, who manages five private apartment complexes in the Albany area, affirmed Byrd’s observations. She may soon have to evict more than 50 families who have not been able to pay their rents.
“My concern is their families who, through no fault or very little fault of their own, are now facing being evicted from their homes and being homeless,” said Wiggins, who noted that COVID has hurt many families’ earning ability.
“Not all landlords, I promise, are bad,” Wiggins said. “We want to try and keep these families in their homes.”
Wiggins and Byrd said some the families they work with have faced problems getting federal COVID rental relief, noting that many faced delays or never received responses.
This was reiterated by Kelley Saxon of Greater Valdosta United Way, who said families in the Valdosta area also face problems getting rental assistance.
There are currently around 150 people living without shelter in the Valdosta area and around 600 students in the area who were either unsheltered or living with families in crowded conditions to avoid homelessness, Saxon said.
“Please don’t forget about us below the [Macon] line down here,” she said.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will square off in a Dec. 6 runoff that could decide whether the Senate will continue to be controlled by Democrats or whether the GOP wins a majority.
With 100% of precincts across Georgia reporting results by Wednesday afternoon, it had become clear neither Warnock nor Walker would exceed the 50%-plus-one threshold required under state law to avoid a runoff.
Warnock holds a narrow lead with 49.4% of the vote to 48.5% for Walker. Libertarian Chase Oliver has just less than 2.1% of the vote, enough to keep the two major-party candidates from winning the election outright on Tuesday.
“There’s just not enough numbers out there to change the outcome of this race,” Gabriel Sterling, elections manager for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, told CNN Wednesday.
Sterling said the office already is starting to design runoff ballots to be delivered to all 159 counties in Georgia by the beginning of next week.
He said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is planning for a minimum of five early voting days ahead of the runoff and setting aside a weekend early voting day for Saturday, Nov. 26.
“It’s really about getting all the parts lined up … so voters can make their voices heard on that Dec. 6 runoff,” Sterling said.
Warnock is no stranger to runoffs, having won the Senate seat over incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a runoff in early January of last year.
With the possibility of control of the Senate at stake, both parties are expected to invest huge sums buying campaign ads.
At least voters already weary of the constant barrage of ads that marked the general election campaign won’t have to endure them as long as during the last runoff. While the Warnock-Loeffler runoff stretched out over two months at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, a change in state law since then will limit the upcoming runoff campaign to four weeks.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia voters have overwhelmingly ratified all four legislative proposals on the statewide ballot this year.
Three of the four received support from more than 75% of the electorate Tuesday, while the proposal garnering the least “yes” votes still won by 18 percentage points.
Two amendments to the Georgia Constitution drew the strongest support. A constitutional change prohibiting statewide elected officials and members of the General Assembly from being paid after they have been indicted for a felony and suspended from office passed with 88.5% of the vote.
Georgia lawmakers took up the legislation after hearing complaints that then-state Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck was still being paid his salary of $195,000 a year after being suspended in 2019 by Gov. Brian Kemp. Beck was indicted and later convicted of fraud and money laundering.
A second constitutional amendment arising from a strong tornado that hit Heard, Coweta, and Fayette counties last year got the most support of the four proposals on the ballot, winning 91.9% of the vote. It will let cities, counties, and local school districts temporarily exempt disaster victims from paying property taxes.
Voters also passed two other tax relief measures that were on the ballot as “questions” rather than as constitutional amendments. Question A, which passed with the least support at a still-solid 59.1%, provides a property tax exemption for equipment used in the timber industry.
Question B expanding an existing property tax exemption for agricultural equipment by applying it to equipment shared by two or more family farms sailed through with 76.5% of the vote.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
