Sweden’s battery cell manufacturer Northvolt and the Portuguese energy producer Galp Energia want to build Europe’s largest plant for the production of lithium hydroxide in Portugal.
The two companies agreed on a 50:50 joint venture called Aurora to produce 35,000 tons of lithium-ion battery input material annually in the future. This would be sufficient for the construction of batteries with a capacity of around 50 GWh and thus for around 700,000 electric cars. The plant is scheduled to go into operation in 2026.
The companies want to invest 700 million euros in the giant project, as they announced. 1500 jobs are to be created directly in the plant. The exact location has not yet been determined, but one option is the port city of Sineu. This is a “serious and conceivable” solution, said Galp CEO Andy Brown at a press conference in Lisbon, but there are many other suitable locations.
Highly modern and efficient
Northvolt itself wants to secure half of the future annual production, the rest is to be sold to other battery manufacturers.
The process for extracting the raw material will be highly modern and efficient, the partners assured. It is also planned to use green energy in the manufacturing process. How extensive this share will be, however, remained unclear at first.
Northvolt was founded in 2016 by former Tesla executives and has since signed extensive supply contracts with Volvo Cars, Volkswagen and BMW, among others.
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