Swedish start-up Northvolt has revealed plans to build the largest battery factory in Europe.
The facility will eventually have an annual production capacity of 32GWh, putting it just behind Tesla’s gigafactory in the US (35GWh).
Located “in the Nordic region”, it will manufacture lithium-ion battery cells for use in electric vehicles and energy system storage, among other things.
The project will reportedly be built in four phases, each of which will have annual production capacity of 8GWh and a price tag of $4 billion (£3.3 billion). Production is expected to start in 2020, with the factory reaching full capacity by 2024.
InnoEnergy has invested €3.5 million (£3 million) in the project. The company’s chief executive Diego Pavia said: “The development of a European large scale battery factory will be revolutionary, especially in terms of electrification of transport – which in itself could drastically reduce Europe’s carbon footprint.
“The benefits can also go beyond supporting the transition to electrification. By considering the deployment of battery-based energy storage at all levels of the electricity network, we can also see that this battery factory will add value to the grid while maximizing the integration of renewable energy.”
“The investment will support us in realizing our vision of creating Europe’s largest scale battery cell production facility,” said chief executive and co-founder of Northvolt, Peter Carlsson, who is also a former supply chain executive at Tesla.