Gigafactory company FREYR Battery is making moves in the US market with the establishment of a technology centre in Boston and the appointment of a VP of operations there.
The Norway-based startup, which is developing advanced lithium-ion battery cell gigafactories in Norway, the US and elsewhere, has opened the centre in Boston. Boston is also where the company’s technology provider 24M is located, and the centre is ‘in accordance with’ FREYR’s expansion strategy, the company said.
The firm, which listed late last year, has also announced the appointment of Michael J. Brose as the newly created position of Vice President of US Operations.
FREYR plans to have 50GWh of annual battery cell production capacity by 2025, 100GWh by 2028 and 200GWh by 2030, double initial targets. The next gigafactory after its first in Norway will be one in the US being launched in partnership with a Koch family-controlled investment vehicle, which is likely to benefit from incentives provided by the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaking to Energy-Storage.news in a recent interview, CEO Tom Jensen said: “We were confident that there would come something (from the goverment).”
“We’ve always said that when the US really gets moving on the energy transition, it would move harder and faster than anyone else, with target incentives to achieve exactly what they want. That’s just the nature of the US market.”
“Global annual production capacity for lithium-ion batteries in 2030 is anyone’s guess but the estimates range from 2.5TWh to 9TWh. If it was, say, 4TWh, our 200GWh would give us a 5% market share. That’s a decent ambition!”
As Energy-Storage.news reported last week, its first gigafactory on home soil is set to start production in the first half of 2024, slightly later than initially planned.
In the third of three back-to-back announcements, FREYR has also said it has entered into strategic partnership with South Korea-based Hana Technology. The two will jointly develop equipment and automation solutions for FREYR’s Customer Qualification Plant in Mo i Rana, Norway, as well as for FREYR’s planned gigafactories globally.