Nordic Green News - 16 July, 2020

Sweden’s Northvolt is taking up the battery battle against the Asian battery giants. A copy of its Sweden factory is now being built up in Germany - a test to roll out even more factories, says the head of Northvolt's new JV with VW, Northvolt-Zwei. The new battery factory, located in Salzgitter, Germany will be built by Volkswagen at a cost of 450 million euros and then leased to the JV company that will operate Northvolt-Zwei. Production is planned to start in 2024. Volkswagen has also invested into Northvolt, buying 20% of its shares. According to Northvolt, it's entire business model has been designed to be able to quickly scale up production. The ambition is to have a capacity of at least 150 gigawatts of production by 2030, one fifth of the European market.

 

Norway’s Morrow Batteries set to compete with Northvolt

Norwegian clean energy provider Agder Energi and industrial waste company Noah, are joining forces to win a stake in the growing EV battery industry with through new company. Morrow Batteries plans to invest NOK 20 billion in a new battery factory that will be built in Agder. Works will start next year. With a total capacity of 32 gigawatt-hours, the factory will consist of four equal modules of 8 gigawatt-hour. The first section is planned to be ready in 2024 and will most likely use existing battery technology, while the others will be developing “the next generation battery cell technology”.

 

Northvolt and Norsk Hydro to build Norwegian car battery recycling plant

With half of all new car sales in Norway electric and another 30% hybrid there will be a large volume of used batteries available in just a few years. Northvolt and Norsk Hydro, are setting up a joint venture called Hydro Volt. Hydro will take the aluminium from the recycling centre and Northvolt the so-called “black mass”, which includes minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and manganese. The Frederikstad, Norway site will initially be able to process about 8,000 tonnes of batteries a year, equivalent to at least 16,000 batteries. Mr Moss said it was important that the plant be “scalable” but that it was too early to say if the joint venture might expand to other countries. Northvolt chief environmental officer said that recycling batteries is challenging because of the purity of materials required, but qualifying this by noting that “A circular raw material flow is mitigating a lot of risk. It’s both securing raw materials, and ensuring these materials aren’t entering nature through the risk of hazardous pollution.”

 

New recycling app

Ragn-Sell's has released a new app that makes it easier for customers in their recycling work. The app has been released for the company’s markets in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Estonia, and is available in English. Customers can use the app to find out everything from how the material is to be transported to which of the UN's global goals is supported by sorting correctly.