Northvolt secures credit for over 1.6 billion dollars
Northvolt has taken out further loans of 1.6 billion US dollars with a number of banks to finance its planned battery cell factories. In total, Northvolt has thus secured over 3 billion dollars.
Northvolt has raised the loans through a consortium of commercial banks, pension funds and public financial institutions. From Germany, IPEX-Bank of the KfW and the Siemens Bank are among the lenders. The complete list of all institutions can be found in Northvolt’s press release linked below.
The funds will mainly be used for the building of Northvolt Ett’s own cell factory in Skellefteå, Sweden, and the plant in Salzgitter, Germany being built in a joint venture with Volkswagen. “The momentum for electrification is stronger than ever,” says Peter Carlsson, co-founder and CEO of Northvolt, according to the announcement. “Our customers need large volumes of high-quality batteries with a low carbon footprint and Europe needs to build a fully regionalised value chain to support them”.
Customers include cooperation partner VW and BMW. The Munich-based company has been working with Northvolt since 2018, but only signed a what they call a long-term supply contract with the Swedish company in July 2020. Starting in 2024, Northvolt is to supply the car manufacturer with cells manufactured in Skellefteå worth two billion euros.
Northvolt-CFO Alexander Hartmann welcomed the “fact that we have these first-class financial institutions supporting a new industry in Europe”. Hartmann apparently does not rule out further loans, as he hinted that “this new industrial landscape” will require “substantial investment” in the coming years.
Since its launch in March 2017, Northvolt has grown to more than 700 employees. In addition to the production of battery cells using energy from wind and hydropower, the company is also working on battery cell technology, process development and recycling at the recently built Northvolt Labs industrialisation factory in Västerås, Sweden, which produced its first battery cells at the end of 2019. In Gdansk, Northvolt says it has a “ready-to-operate factory for battery systems”.
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