Lithium-ion battery manufacturer Energy Renaissance will commence making batteries in a temporary premises at Tomago in August.
The company, which will soon commence construction of a 4,000 square metre purpose-built facility at Tomago called Renaissance One, is also recruiting staff.
"We are looking to hire five manufacturing employees for our temporary facility. This is in addition to a battery engineer that we have recently hired and we are in the process of finalising the hire of our plant manager," a spokesman said.
Construction of the $28million main factory, which requires an approved development application, is expected to start in June and be completed within six months.
Batteries produced at Renaissance One will be used to power infrastructure, buildings, businesses and homes.
It's expected that more than half of the plant's batteries will be exported through the Port of Newcastle to south-east Asia.
The factory will have an initial battery production capacity of 66 megawatt hours per annum, with plans to scale its Australian operation to 5.3 gigawatt hours of energy storage per annum with an additional investment of more than $200 million.
It is estimated the project will employ 1700 people when it reaches full capacity in about five years. Another 6500 indirect jobs will flow from the project.
Managing director Mark Chilcote previously said the company settled on the Hunter because of the highly skilled workforce, tertiary education and research facilities and proximity to a deep water port.
Prime Minister Scott Morrision used a visit to the site in March to launch the Federal Government's Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Processing road map, which aims to increase the value and influence of Australia's emerging battery industry.
Mr Chilcote said the United States had recently announced that it would prioritise the domestic consumption and production of critical and rare earth minerals.
"Australia cannot afford to be at the end of a queue for these minerals. There is currently no commercial production of battery-grade materials and chemicals in Australia," he said.
"But we will change this in the very near future when Energy Renaissance commences production of its batteries.
"We will be able to engage with suppliers of Australian nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, lithium, aluminium and copper and to use their materials in our batteries."
Energy Renaissance announced last month that it was collaborating with the CSIRO on the construction of an Australian-first defence-grade battery management system for use in extreme conditions.
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The Australian-first cybersecure technology will monitor and report on a battery's usage, lifespan and faults through a mobile network.
It will also be capable of transmitting secure real time data, analytics and remote management to reduce the risk of battery failure.
The Federal Government provided a co-funded grant of $246,625 through the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre to Energy Renaissance.
This has been used to accelerate research and development as it starts to manufacture batteries locally.
