CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A UK technology company plans to build a new facility in West Virginia that officials said Monday is expected to create 1,000 new manufacturing and technology jobs.
DST Innovations, a company based in Wales, is partnering with Blue Rock Manufacturing for the new facility to develop clean energy technology. A manufacturing center will be set up in Morgantown and a future expansion will come to southern West Virginia, officials said.
State and company officials said the multimillion dollar production facility will be able to use coal, once the state’s economic driver, and other organic materials to make “clean, sustainable energy storage products.”
“West Virginia and Wales are proud mining communities,” Gov. Jim Justice said at a news conference.
Tony Miles, the CEO of DST Innovations, said that his company was able to find the coal it needed for its technology in West Virginia. Its website says it converts coal to create activated hard carbon, which is used in batteries and in other ways of storing energy.
Miles said the partnership aims to build a reactor next to a coal mine for its conversion technology.
