Northvolt kicks off battery cell production at Swedish gigafactory

Swedish battery maker Northvolt assembled its first lithium-ion battery cell at its Swedish Ett gigafactory, making it the first European company to design, develop and assemble a battery in Europe, it said Dec. 29.

Northvolt said the cell was of a prismatic cell format – which has grown in popularity due to its large capacity and thin profile but doesn't come in uniform design – and came off the cell assembly line on Dec. 28.

The company said commissioning and upscaling of the gigafactory is to continue through into 2022, when the first commercial customer deliveries are expected to be made.

Northvolt said it plans over the next few years to increase production capacity at Ett to 60 GWh/year in order to fulfill over $30 billion worth of contracts it has secured with customers, including BMW, Fluence, Polestar, Scania, Volkswagen and Volvo Cars.

"Today is a great milestone for Northvolt which the team has worked very hard to achieve. Of course, this first cell is only the beginning," Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson said in a statement.

"Over the course of the coming years, we look forward to Northvolt Ett expanding its production capacity greatly to enable the European transition to clean energy," Carlsson said.

On Dec. 14, Galp, Portugal's largest oil and gas group, and Northvolt announced a joint venture to potentially build Europe's largest lithium conversion plant with a capacity of 35,000 mt/year.

On Dec. 10, Northvolt said it will open a research and development center in Gothenburg, Sweden, with Volvo in 2022 as part of their SEK 30 billion ($3.3 billion) battery investment.

On Oct. 7, the company said it was to invest $750 million to expand its Northvolt Labs in Vasteras, Sweden, into a fully-integrated battery ecosystem campus to advance technologies in the emerging European battery industry.