Start-up Northvolt has raised 350 million euros from the European Investment Bank to build a lithium-ion battery cell factory in northern Sweden. With an initial capacity of 16 GW per year, later to be expanded to 32 GW per year, it would be Europe’s first gigafactory. It would also probably be the greenest battery factory in the world, as the region can supply fully renewable energy and has a history of clean mining of raw materials.
According to Northvolt, 1.5 billion euro is needed to finance the first phase of the plant. Previously, the company closed deals with potential customers, BMW and Scania, and earlier this year, it entered into a research alliance with Volkswagen. Ikea recently confirmed that it’s in ‘the final stages’ of talks about participating.
