Northvolt Opens Europe’s First Homegrown 60GW Gigafactory In Sweden

Battery maker Northvolt has started production at its Ett gigafactory in northern Sweden, with its first lithium-ion prismatic cell coming off the assembly line yesterday.

The first fully European designed, developed and assembled battery maker, Northvolt plans to deliver up to 60GW a year of commercial battery capacity, and has confirmed it is holding more than US$30 billion in supply contracts.

Northvolt has raised $6.5 billion in nine funding rounds since 2017, and it plans for Northvolt Ett at Skellefteå, Sweden, to be followed by at least two more, with 150GW of capacity planned by 2030 .

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The ramping up of the Northvolt Ett plant will continue through 2022, and first customer deliveries are expected by mid-year.

“Today is a great milestone for Northvolt which the team has worked very hard to achieve,” Northvolt CEO and co-founder Peter Carlsson said.

“Of course, this first cell is only the beginning. Over the course of the coming years, we look forward to Northvolt Ett expanding its production capacity greatly to enable the European transition to clean energy.” 

The Volkswagen Group was one of Northvolt’s earliest investors, along with Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Scania and Stena Metall, and Northvolt confirmed it holds supply contracts from Volkswagen, Volvo, Polestar, Scania and BMW. The Volkswagen Group contract alone is worth more than $14 billion.

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More than 500 people are employed at the gigafactory, which also has a core value of sourcing 50% of its raw materials from recycled batteries by 2030.