Germany Clears $750 Million to Seal Northvolt Battery Plant Deal

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Germany is hoping to guarantee the construction of a US$3.3 billion electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Heide by agreeing to roughly 700 million euro (US$755 million) in financial aid for Sweden's Northvolt (Stockholm, Sweden).

Despite a funding freeze currently in place, funding amounting to 564 million euro (US$608 million) will come from the federal government and a further 136 million euro (US$147 million) from the state of Schleswig Holstein over a number of years. According to media group NDR, the project is considered a high priority and a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Economics said: "With the funding, the federal government wants to provide direct incentives for the establishment of key technologies such as battery cells in Germany in times of growing global competition." The European Commission (EC) will need to approve the funding package before Northvolt can make its final investment decision.

The Germany gigafactory--Northvolt Drei--will be the company's third and will be located in the country's so-called "clean energy valley", at Heide in the north of the country. The plant's annual potential production capacity of 60 gigawatt-hours (GWh) will be enough for roughly 1 million EVs. It will boost the company's overall production capacity to 170 GWh, much of it still under development. Commissioning is planned for 2025, and more than 3,000 jobs will be created.

"Securing the funding for Northvolt is an important step towards triggering a major private investment that will create added value and jobs in an industry of the future," said Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck. "And it is good that we were able to obtain the exemption from the budget freeze."

A Northvolt spokesman told NDR that it had received the written decision regarding funding and that it had created immediate planning security, allowing the company to continue the construction work it has already started on site. Construction workers are already in the process of laying a natural gas pipeline and demolishing a disused biogas plant on the 110-hectare site. It will make its final decision after a ruling from the EC and some statutory resolutions from the municipalities of Norderwöhrden and Lohe-Rickelshof on the development plans. To date Northvolt has secured more than US$9 billion in equity and debt to deliver on over US$55 billion in orders from key customers, including BMW (Munich, Germany) and Volkswagen AG (VW) (Wolfsburg, Germany).

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