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Swedish battery start-up to build third factory in northern Germany

Battery group Northvolt announced Tuesday that it would build a battery factory in northern Germany, as Europe seeks to ramp up its capacity to produce electric cars.

Published: 15 March 2022 11:05 CET

A rendering of the planned Northvolt Drei battery factory

A rendering of the planned Northvolt Drei battery factory. Photo: Northvolt

The Swedish electric car battery specialist said it picked Heide in Germany’s northernmost state Schleswig-Holstein as it is known as a “clean energy valley” which is home to windfarms that would power the plant.

The new plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 60 GWh — enough to supply around one million cars per year. The factory could start production in 2025 and provide some 3,000 jobs, the company said in a statement.

Northvolt opened its first “gigafactory” in Sweden in December and the Heide factory will take its battery manufacturing capacity under development above 170 GWh gigawatt hours.

Schleswig-Holstein was selected as the “region hosts the cleanest energy grid in Germany, one which is characterized by a surplus of electricity generated by onshore and offshore wind power”, Northvolt said.

“It matters how we produce a battery cell. If you use coal in your production, you embed a fair amount of CO2 into your battery, but if we use clean energy, we can build a very sustainable product,” Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson said.

One of Europe’s leading battery hopefuls, Northvolt has already secured $50 billion (44.6 billion euros) worth of orders from European car giants including Germany’s BMW and Volkswagen, and Sweden’s Volvo.

Faced with China, which dominates the market, Europe accounted for just three percent of world battery cell production in 2020 but aims to corner 25 percent of the market by the end of the decade, with several factory openings planned.

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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg detained by Dutch police

Thunberg and other protesters of the Extinction Rebellion environmental group were seen sitting in a waiting bus, while police were continuing to make arrests, an AFP correspondent said.

Thunberg earlier joined several hundred protesters as they walked from the Dutch city centre to a field next to the A12 arterial highway leading out of the city.

The highway was the scene of previous protests by Extinction Rebellion with activists closing it off from traffic before police deployed water guns and made arrests.

READ ALSO: Greta Thunberg blocks entrance to Swedish parliament in climate protest

But on Saturday dozens of police officers, including some on horseback, blocked the group from entering the highway, warning that “violence could be used” should the marchers try to get onto the road.

Carrying XR flags and placards saying “Stop fuel subsidies now!” and “The planet is dying!”, protesters were then locked in a tense standoff with police who formed a wall of law enforcement.

Some protesters then found another route and blocked a main road close to the highway — which leads from the seaside city of The Hague to the central city of Utrecht.

Thunberg, dressed in a grey top, black trousers and blue shoes, joined the group at the start and was chanting songs with the group as they initially came to an abrupt stop.

“It’s important to demonstrate today because we are living in a state of planetary emergency,” Thunberg told AFP as police blocked marchers.

“We must do everything to avoid that crisis and to save human lives,” she said.

At least one protester was arrested earlier and dragged away to a waiting police van, an AFP correspondent saw.

Asked whether she was concerned about police action and arrest, Thunberg said: “Why should I be?”

Activists said that despite majority backing by the Dutch parliament as well as broad popular support to slash fossil fuel subsidies, “the plans will not be implemented before 2030, or even 2035”.

“Meanwhile the ecological crisis continues to rage and the country’s outgoing cabinet pretends that we have all the time in the world, while the crisis is now,” XR said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The protest, added XR, was part of a plan to pressure the Dutch government ahead of another planned debate about fossil subsidies in June.

Thunberg in March blockaded the main entrance to the Swedish parliament, alongside a number of other climate activists, criticising the government for “not treating the climate crisis like a crisis at all.”

The March blockade came just ahead of the fifth anniversary of the founding of her Fridays for Future global youth climate protest that drew over a million participants.

The activists sat on the steps of Sweden’s parliament holding a banner reading “Climate Justice Now”, as Thunberg criticised governments worldwide for inaction on the climate crisis.

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