Sweden’s Northvolt to Build Battery Plant in Northern Germany

Swedish battery maker Northvolt will build a €4 billion ($4.44 billion), 60-gW battery factory in the northern German city of Heide.

“Northvolt Drei” in the state of Schleswig-Holstein will be the company’s third production facility of this size and its first outside Sweden. 

Northvolt says the gigafactory will employ 3,000 persons and will produce its first lithium-ion batteries for the European market in late 2025. The company also plans a battery-recycling facility at the site on the North Sea coast.

“In Heide, we really found a spot where we could combine all our requirements: attracting talent and feeling the support for our aspiration of building the world’s greenest batteries,” Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson says at a news conference announcing the plant. “With the energy mix in Schleswig-Holstein, with the offshore wind coming in, but also with the linkage to Denmark and Norway in the energy feed, we saw that this is probably the best spot for us in Germany to build this set-up.”

Germany is Europe’s leading EV battery-production location with 485 gWh of capacity in existing and planned facilities, according to the Handelsblatt business newspaper. Other companies that have recently built or are planning facilities in Germany include CATL, SVOLT, PSA Group and Tesla.

“Germany Trade & Invest has been working together closely with Northvolt since late 2019 to find a site for the company’s German production facility, and we encouraged them to investigate sites in the north of the country as well as other regions because of the availability of renewable energy on Germany’s coasts,” says Stefan di Bitonto, an automotive specialist with the federal economic-development agency.

“Northvolt’s planned gigafactory in Heide is a further indication that the automotive industry in Germany is expanding beyond its traditional strongholds, as mobility is rethought during Germany’s transition to clean energy,” he says.