Northvolt secures support from European Investment Bank
Northvolt has secured financing of up 52,5 million euros from the European Investment Bank, based in Luxembourg, in order to construct a demonstration of its planned battery cell factory in Sweden.
They recently also received funding from the Swedish Energy Agency valued around 15 million euros. The pilot line will be developed alongside a research lab under the Northvolt Labs banner. The centre will serve to qualify and industrialise products and processes together with partners and customers.
The location of the planned facility will be in Swedish Västerås. According to a statement by the company, Northvolt Labs is an important step to the realisation of the planned lithium-ion battery factory in Skellefteå, which they hope will reach an annual production volume of 32 GWh. They plan to produce batteries for transportation and energy storage and to employ around 300 to 400 people.
The construction of the pilot line, which is directly funded by the subsidies, is set to begin in the coming months. Peter Carlsson, formerly a Tesla manager, and now CEO of Northvolt, thinks that the financial boost will help them realise their plan to eventually build the “greenest battery in the world”, as well as a strong and competitive supply chain model for battery production in Europe.
These are also the kind of developments that EU Energy Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič had in mind when he recently spoke of a European partnership to grow a local battery industry, and address the potential battery shortage that is emerging as demand for batteries is skyrocketing, and production is simply not keeping up.
Recently Northvolt brought utility vehicle producer Scania on board, and the two companies plan to develop batteries in cooperation for the use in heavy industrial vehicles. Scania invested 10 million euros into the venture, whereas some of the money will also be used to fund the research lab.
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