Northvolt expands battery production by 20GWh

According to Reuters, Swedish lithium-ion battery manufacturer Northvolt said it has raised US$2.75 billion (approximately RMB 17.6 billion) to expand its Skelleftea plant in Sweden from 40GWh to 60GWh to meet the rising demand of important customers. Mass production of the plant is expected to begin at the end of this year, and deliveries to Volkswagen will begin in 2023. Northvolt said in a statement that the fundraising was led by the Swedish pension fund AP and the Canadian pension fund Omers, as well as existing investors Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen. Up to now, Northvolt has more than 6.5 billion US dollars of equity and financing to achieve an expansion plan: to occupy a 25% market share in Europe by 2030, and the annual output deployed in Europe will reach and exceed 150GWh, which must be at least in Europe Establish 3 large battery factories. In March, Northvolt announced that it had signed a 10-year order with Volkswagen worth more than 14 billion U.S. dollars, and Volkswagen currently holds 20% of its shares. Northvolt also won a 2 billion euros (approximately 15.9 billion yuan) battery supply contract from the BMW Group in July 2020. Northvolt claims that, including the above-mentioned order, the company has obtained a battery supply contract worth 27 billion U.S. dollars (approximately RMB 1,735) from important customers. At present, the joint venture battery company between Volkswagen and Northvolt is speeding up construction. It is expected to start producing power lithium batteries in Salzgitter, Germany in early 2023/2024. The initial annual output will be as high as 16GWh, and the latter will be further expanded to 40GWh. In addition to the electric vehicle field, Northvolt is also accelerating production construction and market application in the energy storage field. At the end of February, foreign media reported that Northvolt invested US$200 million (approximately RMB 1.3 billion) to expand the Polish plant and build the largest energy storage solution plant in Europe. The plant will begin construction this fall and put into production in 2022. The annual output of modules and battery packs of 5GWh will be established in the initial stage, and it may be expanded to 12GWh in the future. Northvolt's goal is to become an important supplier of grid-level energy storage solutions. At present, Northvolt's first utility-level battery energy storage system has been officially put into operation, with an energy storage scale of 220kW/320kWh.