IT’S BEEN CALLED the industrial project of the century in Sweden. Big words, but Northvolt’s business concept certainly comes at the right time. A little more than three years after Peter Carlsson – with a background in Tesla’s management group – founded the company, it’s not only fully occupied developing “the world’s greenest batteries” (its vision) but is also in the process of building two production plants, one in Sweden and one in Germany.

The Swedish plant, Northvolt One, will be located in Skellefteå and cover an area of half a million square meters.

Battery production from scratch

“We will produce lithium-ion batteries from scratch there,” says Mikael Thorslund, director of business development for industrial applications at Northvolt.

“Among other things, this will mean buying the minerals and manufacturing the cathode material ourselves, something we will be alone in doing in the industry. We will also have a battery recycling facility, which is of course important for the environment.”

Construction of Northvolt One began in October 2019, and operations are scheduled to begin in 2021. The plant will use hydro-electric power and have an initial annual capacity of 8 gigawatt hours. This will then be increased in stages to 40 gigawatt hours.

Several reasons to choose Skellefteå

So why has Northvolt chosen to build its first major plant (there is already an R&D facility in Västerås) in Skellefteå, where 2,700 new jobs will be created; the availability of renewable energy is one explanation, but surely there are more?

“There’s an abundance of minerals in northern Scandinavia and logistics routes are efficient,” says Mikael Thorslund. “What’s more, we’ve received great support from Skellefteå municipality and its entire surrounding area. This was, and remains, extremely important.”

Northvolt is targeting a number of different market segments, where road vehicles constitute the largest. It is also developing grid solutions for energy storage, batteries for non-road industrial applications and finally batteries for power tools. Batteries for industry include use within materials handling, construction & infrastructure, mining, rail, aviation and various maritime applications.

Planning for marine applications

“We aim to be a key player when maritime transport has to reduce its carbon footprint,” says Mikael Thorslund. “By adding electricity to the mix, it would be possible to use battery power for virtually all short-distance transport such as ferry lines. As far as long-distance transport is concerned, it’s not yet possible to store enough electricity in batteries, but there is naturally always the possibility of hybrid solutions.”

Northvolt is holding discussions in its search for marine battery solutions that allow both pure electric and hybrid solutions.

“Thanks to electric power, we can get a long way toward more sustainable transport, even at sea,” says Mikael Thorslund.