Chinese battery manufacturer Svolt Energy Technology is planning to build a new power battery plant in Germany, the company has announced.
Svolt Energy Technology
The Saarland-based plant would have a battery capacity reaching 24 GWh/yr. The demand amongst Svolt's European customers reached 7 GWh/yr in June this year and is likely to increase.
The €2 billion plant will include a module pack factory, which is scheduled to begin operations in early-2022, and a cell module factory that will start production at the end of 2023.
Svolt president Yang Hongxin has said the company is targeting a global capacity of 100 GWh/yr including 76 GWh/yr in China.
The European Union has been pushing for the creation of its own independent battery supply chain and has been investing heavily in battery projects across the continent. Progress is set to accelerate this year and through 2021 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to the strengthening of the importance of such a supply chain.
Despite an overall year-on-year fall in new car registrations this year, due to the pandemic, the market share of electric vehicles in the EU rose in this year's second quarter.
Several global battery makers are investing in European facilities in order to open up the market. South Korea's SK Innovation is planning another lithium-ion battery separator production line in Poland, and China's Senior is to set up a facility in Sweden. Last week, Japan's Panasonic announced that it was looking at the possibility of opening a battery plant in Norway.
Svolt was formerly a subsidiary of Chinese automotive company Great Wall Automobile and has operated as an independent company since February 2018. The company set up its power battery arm in December 2016.
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