A lithium-ion prismatic cell battery from Northvolt, photographed on Feb. 17, 2022.
Mikael Sjoberg | Bloomberg | Getty Pictures
Northvolt stated Tuesday it might look to construct a gigafactory in Germany, with the agency hoping the power’s first batteries might be produced in 2025.
In a press release, the Stockholm-headquartered battery maker stated the Northvolt Drei plant can be situated in Heide, northern Germany, and supply lithium-ion batteries for the European market.
Northvolt stated the plant’s “potential manufacturing capability” was slated to be 60 gigawatt hours per 12 months, which might be “ample for some a million electrical automobiles.”
The agency stated Northvolt Drei — “drei” is three in German — can be its third gigafactory. Gigafactories are services that produce batteries for electrical automobiles on a big scale. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been broadly credited as coining the time period.
Northvolt stated the placement of the manufacturing unit within the state of Schleswig-Holstein would allow it to faucet into the realm’s power grid.
It described the grid as being “characterised by a surplus of electrical energy generated by onshore and offshore wind energy and bolstered by clear power offered by means of grid interconnections to Denmark and Norway.”
Northvolt was based in 2016 and has attracted funding from Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen, amongst others.
“It issues how we produce a battery cell,” Peter Carlsson, Northvolt’s CEO, stated Tuesday. “If you happen to use coal in your manufacturing, you embed a good quantity of CO2 into your battery, but when we use clear power, we will construct a really sustainable product,” Carlsson stated.
“Our philosophy is that new energy-intensive industries, reminiscent of battery manufacturing, needs to be established in precise geographical proximity to the place the clear power is produced.”
Northvolt shouldn’t be alone in trying to set up a gigafactory in Germany, an industrial and financial powerhouse that is residence to a extremely expert labor power. Tesla is engaged on its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, for instance.
Elsewhere, VW — which in Dec. 2021 stated it had a stake of roughly 20% in Northvolt — desires to develop numerous its personal gigafactories in Europe, together with one within the German state of Decrease Saxony.
Additional afield, on Monday Ford stated it had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s SK On Co. and Turkey’s Koç Holding.
The MOU pertains to the institution of a three way partnership centered across the growth of a business EV battery facility close to the Turkish capital of Ankara. If all goes to plan, it is hoped manufacturing on the plant may start by the center of this decade.
Ford stated the JV had assist from the Turkish authorities and would have a capability ranging between 30 to 45 gigawatt hours per 12 months.
Efforts to determine services centered on EV batteries come at a time when main economies need to scale back the environmental footprint of road-based transportation and transfer away from automobiles primarily based on gasoline and diesel.
The European Fee, the EU’s government arm, is focusing on a 100% discount in CO2 emissions from vehicles and vans by 2035. Turkey, the place the Ford-backed battery facility can be situated, shouldn’t be a part of the EU.
The U.Ok., which left the EU on the finish of January 2020, desires to cease the sale of recent diesel and gasoline vehicles and vans by 2030. It can require, from 2035, all new vehicles and vans to have zero-tailpipe emissions.
