Freyr has made the decision to form Giga Arctic, a merger of two previously planned battery factories in Mo i Rana. At the same time, the company is significantly increasing its long-term plan, and is now aiming for 200 GWh by 2030.
Freyr, the Norwegian equivalent of the Swedish Northvolt, is increasing the pace. This week, the company decided to merge the two planned battery factories Gigafactory 1 and 2 in Mo i Rana into a single one, called Giga Arctic. The annual production capacity will be 29 GWh lithium-ion batteries, more than twice as much as the two factories previously had together. For comparison, Northvolt One in Skellefteå, fully developed, will reach 60 GWh per year.
Foundation work is already underway on site. The goal is to be in production during the first half of 2024, which is somewhat later than the company had previously hoped for.
200 GWh / year until 2030
At the same time, Freyr has updated its expansion plan for the future. The goal is still 43 GWh annual capacity by 2025 and 83 GWh by 2028, but now there is a stated hope of having reached 200 GWh by 2030. So far, the company has told about plans for new factories in Finnish Vaasa and in the US, then together with Koch Strategic Platforms.
Mostly LFP, but also NMC
Giga Arctic will mainly produce lithium-ion batteries of the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) type. It is cheaper but has a lower energy density than the NMC chemistry (nickel, manganese, cobalt) that Northvolt produces in Skellefteå.
– The main product will be LFP for battery-based energy storage systems, but we have a chemically flexible platform and can manufacture NMC-based solutions for different types of energy storage and mobility applications, announces CEO Tom Einar Jensen Ny Teknik.
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