ElevenEs kicks off LFP battery cell production in Serbia
The Serbian company ElevenEs has opened a plant for the production of battery cells. It is located in Subotica, Serbia, and specialises in the production of prismatic LFP cells. By 2024, the plant is to be expanded into a “mega-factory” with a production capacity of 500 MWh.
According to ElevenEs, the cells produced in Subotica will now initially be supplied as samples to customers for use in electric cars, buses, trucks and stationary energy storage systems. The 500 MWh expansion stage will also “focus on, but not be limited to, C and D samples”, according to a company statement. In doing so, it said it intends to “source all necessary active materials from Europe in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the LFP battery cells produced”.
A research and development centre was opened in Subotica, Serbia, in mid-2021. The now-opened production is closely interwoven with this. In principle, ElevenEs aims to build two large production facilities with a total capacity of 48 GWh in the coming years. The first, with an annual capacity of 8 GWh, is scheduled to come on stream in 2026, and the second, with 40 GWh of capacity per year, in late 2027.
“The expansion of our R&D center and opening of our first production facility in Serbia is a huge milestone for ElevenEs and the European battery cell market as a whole. We’re proud of our contribution to reducing the global footprint starting with our battery cells’ local production,” expressed Nemanja Mikac, CEO of ElevenEs.
Incidentally, ElevenEs first made its presence felt in the autumn of 2021, when the Serbian company announced a strategic partnership with EIT InnoEnergy to build the first LFP battery gigafactory in Europe. This is the 8 GWh plant mentioned above and at the time it was said that construction would also start in Subotica in 2024 and that a capacity expansion to 16 GWh later was planned. The current announcement does not specifically mention the start of construction, the location or the 16 GWh.
Last year ElevenEs presented a prototype of its LFP cell. The developer speaks of “the largest battery cell manufactured in Europe”, which is to be launched in three sizes – each in prismatic format. After developing and testing more than 500 laboratory sample cells, they developed the final cell chemistry and design and grew into an international team of almost 50 people, Mikać announced last September.
ElevenEs says it is a spin-off of the AI Pack Group, a large aluminium processor. The company started work on an LFP battery in 2019, with the aim of developing a particularly sustainable and efficient cell. Investor EIT InnoEnergy is not new to the battery technology space: EIT is also one of the early investors in Swedish company Northvolt and French startup Verkor, which has since struck a deal with Renault. How much EIT InnoEnergy invested in ElevenEs in 2021 is not known.
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