Northvolt, founded by Swedish entrepreneur Peter Carlsson, has received $ 1 billion in funding, which will lay the foundation for its capture of the European battery market.
Northvolt said the fund-raising consortium was led by the Volkswagen Group and Goldman Sachs commercial banking divisions, and also included members of the BMW Group, the Swedish insurance company Folksam Group, and the IMAS Foundation associated with IKEA . In addition, the European Investment Bank approved a $ 400 million loan from the company in May this year to help it establish a lithium-ion battery production base.
Second gigafactory
Northvolt has a research laboratory in Sweden, and two battery plants under construction, Northvolt Ett and Northvolt Labs, and a battery system plant in Poland, which is already in production. The company said that the newly injected $ 1 billion is expected to be used to expand the Swedish battery factory Northvolt Ett into a "super factory", which may be the first lithium-ion battery super factory in Europe. Although most of the factories are not yet fully formed, the prospects for self-built battery factories in Europe are very bright. The company said that it has reached supply agreements with a number of suppliers, and that its total orders by 2030 exceeded $ 13 billion.
The company will be responsible for the preparation of active materials, battery assembly, recycling and auxiliary equipment. And said that the capacity of the established super factory will be expanded to at least 32 GWh.
In addition to the super factory, Northvolt and Volkswagen also plan to establish a 50% joint venture with a 16 GWh battery factory in Lower Saxony, Germany. Commercial production of batteries is expected to begin in late 2023 or early 2024. The electric version of Volkswagen Golf has a battery capacity of 35kWh, and a 16 GWh plant can produce nearly 500,000 electric golf cart batteries per year.
Ambitious European business
Northvolt is considered a great milestone, and it will be compared with China's Ningde era and BYD in the future. It signifies that Europe is preparing to compete with the battery industry around the world in the future of electrification, and is determined to minimize the possibility of carbon dioxide emissions through batteries. The European Union has established a battery alliance to enhance European manufacturers' leading position in the global market. The European Commission predicts that 10-20 super factories will be needed to meet EU demand alone. Through self-built factories, from 2025, Europe can obtain a battery market worth 282 billion US dollars each year.