A joint venture to make battery energy storage systems for industrial facilities is set to begin production in Jackson County this summer.
NeoVolta, a California-based firm that previously focused solely on home BESS systems, is branching into the commercial space with a new entity in Pendergrass, Ga., that will involve, in a roundabout way, one of China’s largest solar panel manufacturers.
At a shiny new logistics center just off Interstate 85, NeoVolta Power is set to build an initial run of 2 GWh of BESS systems in partnership with PotisEdge, a Canadian company recently acquired by Longi Green Energy Technology Co. Ltd.
Longi is headquartered in Xi’an, China, with annual revenues exceeding $10 billion. Its acquisition of a majority interest in PotisEdge is part of a global effort to offer customers an integrated “one-stop” solution from generation to storage.
The JV was announced in a January news release that teased a mid-2026 Georgia production launch and 89 jobs created in the first phase. The plant will “initially focus on prismatic-cell battery pack assembly and DC container integration,” according to a release, with plans to quickly double production to 4 GWh after the initial ramp-up, NeoVolta CEO Ardes Johnson told Global Atlanta in an interview.
The joint-venture arrangement was, in part, an acknowledgement that “in order to be a producer of energy storage systems in this world today, it’s pretty difficult to not at least have some partnership with China,” Mr. Johnson said.
That said, compliance with U.S. Foreign Entity of Concern, or FEOC, rules required a creative structure. NeoVolta owns 80 percent of the venture, with PotisEdge taking 20 percent. The entity needs to be majority U.S.-controlled to qualify for investment tax credits that can offset 30-40 percent of the cost of construction.
While tax credits on electric vehicles from the former Inflation Reduction Act were eliminated soon after One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 passed, energy storage systems were given until 2032 before the credits are phased out.
Sourcing from so-called Prohibited Foreign Entities in China, like state-run companies or those influenced or controlled by the government, isn’t prohibited overall, but battery storage projects that break ground in 2026 now require 55 percent of the overall expenditures on within a qualifying facility to go toward domestically sourced content, and the local-content requirement rises each year. Read more from BESS development firm Carina
The regulatory change has seen companies pivot from electric vehicle batteries to storage systems, including in Georgia.
SK Battery said last September that it would retool part of its $2.6 billion Commerce plant (also in Jackson County) to focus on lithium iron phosphate batteries to plug into Denver-based Flatiron Energy’s BESS modules being sold in the U.S. In March, SK laid off 958 workers from the Commerce plant amid the reshuffling to energy storage.
PotisEdge manufactures many of its components in Suzhou, China, but does not make battery cells, which are the majority of the cost of any system.
Mr. Johnson didn’t say whether the NeoVolta joint venture would eventually become an offtaker for the SK Battery plant, just 15 miles up the interstate. But he did note that after importing Chinese batteries this year, the plan is to move sourcing to other intenrational locations, then to on-shore purchases of cells as domestic capacity grows.
“We’re talking to all those players in the game, so we ultimately have this three-pronged process: China, likely non-Chinese globally, and ultimately domestic content,” Mr. Johnson said.
Potisedge currently sources from Chinese cell suppliers for assembly of energy storage systems. According reports citing PotisEdge CEO Minjie Shi, the Georgia plant will replicate much of that production, just with more automation.
Traded on the NASDAQ, NeoVolta welcomes the chance to collaborate with established players like PotisEdge and Longi on the technology side, Mr. Johnson said.
The arrangement gives NeoVolta’s executives to focus on finance and compliance, leveraging the hardware strengths of their Chinese partners, both of which have given NeoVolta “more support than we have even asked for,” Mr. Johnson said.
Longi has a track record with FEOC compliance through its Invenergy partnership in Ohio, and working with these companies gave the Georgia venture “bankability from day one,” Mr. Johnson added. PotisEdge even signed the initial lease in Pendergrass to get things moving.
NeoVolta, meanwhile, will also see a major “step change” from its previous revenue base of a couple million dollars per year by tackling, first, utility-scale storage market, and then what Mr. Johnson, a former Tesla sales executive, calls the “missing middle” of storage: commercial and industrial.
Mr. Johnson doesn’t see NeoVolta abandoning home-energy systems, but focusing on BESS will see NeoVolta’s revenues growing to $20 million in the short term from just a few million dollars last year.
The company has calculated that full production at the Georgia plant would represent some $400 million in potential BESS sales at current market rates.
Getting there will require the JV to raise some $20 million beyond the $23 million it has already netted to power the Georgia plant’s initial phase.
In late 2025, NeoVolta said it had received a $13 million private placement to power the joint venture, led by a $10 million infusion from Infinite Grid Capital, a private equity fund focused on energy storage with a broad international portfolio and executives with deep experience in China.
Jackson County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Steve Wittry told Global Atlanta he wasn’t aware of the project, but that the SK plant had drawn attention to the area.
“I think it’s definitely put us on the map because there are companies that look at Jackson County because they produce some of the materials that SK is interested in,” Mr. Wittry said. “I wouldn’t call it a partnership, but it’s a connection.”
Early on, the SK investment attracted supliers like Enchem and later, Duckyang, both from South Korea.
NeoVolta Power, meanwhile, is bringing the newest version of established Chinese technology to Georgia with companies who understand the long-term partnership approach it takes to succeed in the U.S. market.
Having seen PotisEdge’s processes — and the actual assembly lines desitned for Georgia — during trips to China, Mr. Johnson is persuaded that the partnership will marry the two sides’ strengths well.
“The magic is engineering it and putting it all together and making it operable.”
