Northvolt, one of the “most promising startups” from the megabattery sector, will invest in a factory in Gdansk. The investment is to be worth $200 million, or about 740 million PLN. Thanks to that, the company wants to compete with Tesla on the battery market – reports Bloomberg.
Northvolt is preparing to produce batteries in Sweden and Germany. The factory in Gdansk is another project of the startup that will allow it to compete with Tesla in the energy storage systems market. Production in Poland is expected to begin in 2022, with an initial production capacity estimated at 5-gigawatt hours.
In the longer-term vision, the company wants to increase this to 12 GWh. It would then be the largest plant of its kind in Europe, Bloomberg notes.
Northvolt is a company created by former Tesla manager Peter Carlsson. He was the supply chain giant’s vice president. Northvolt’s investors include Volkswagen, BMW, and Goldman Sachs. The company wants to take advantage of the fact that Europe is pushing hard to establish its battery supply chains to compete with China, South Korea, and Japan in this field.
The startup is expected to produce its batteries mainly in Sweden and offer them to car makers and companies developing energy storage systems, among others. About 1/4 of the batteries produced in Sweden will come to Poland – the plant in Gdansk will assemble them into stabilizing modules that will be later installed at electrical networks.