Battery maker Britishvolt announced this month that its gigafactory in Northumberland has secured funding from the government’s Automotive Transformation Fund (said to be around £100m) and that it has secured £1.7bn in private funding from logistics real estate fund manager, Tritax (LON:BBOX) and abrdn (LON:ABDN), the Edinburgh-based asset manager. This is the first full-scale gigaplant in the UK and the second one in Europe.
The new factory which sits on the original site of Blyth Power Station, should begin its first phase of production in late 2023/early 2024. And with capacity to produce 300,000 electric vehicle battery packs each year, equivalent to around 25% of current UK vehicle manufacture, it could secure Britain’s position on the sustainable battery production map.
It certainly looks as if the government hopes so. Kwasi Kwarteng, UK’s Business and Energy Secretary was seen braving the wintry Northumberland coast to show his support for the funding announcement and Boris Johnson tweeted his congratulations too. Not to mention the potential creation of 3,000 high-value jobs and a further 5,000 in the wider UK supply chain.
EVs on a massive growth trajectory
Underpinning all this is the government’s phasing out of the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030.
Already sales of electric vehicles are soaring: according to GlobalData’s Daniel Clarke, “in 2020, the number of hybrid and electric cars on UK roads grew by 54.7%, reaching 327,833 – up from 211,915 in 2019. The number of EVs sold is expected to exponentially increase. In 2025, the United Kingdom hybrid & electric cars market is forecast to have a volume of 656,850 units, an increase of 100.4% since 2020.”
Britishvolt innovates at pace
Undoubtedly it is good news for Britishvolt. With planning permission granted in July, construction commencing in September 2021 and just under £2bn of investment to play with, the company can forge ahead with building the gigaplant.
It has also successfully developed its first Production Intent next generation Li-ion cells using UK developed intellectual property, and says Britishvolt, this puts it on a glidepath to its first commercial products.
Added to this, last week the company entered into a two-year, multi-million pound agreement with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC), to develop, assemble and manufacture its next generation sample cells for mass production and commercialisation. Initial solutions will focus on high nickel, increased energy density materials to produce and test batteries with greater performance and range.
And prior to this, in August 2021 BV secured an undisclosed investment from Glencore – a long-term cobalt supply agreement. It is a vote of confidence with funding partners such as these.
And a London listing?
But whether this funding changes the battery maker’s plans to list on the London Stock Exchange is another matter – last year Britishvolt’s founder, Orral Nadjari stated that they were considering a listing to help finance the project, but he also said that a decision would be made by the end of 2021.
We’ve no news on this as yet. But with the company mission stating that it is bigger than Britishvolt and that is about large-scale job creation and future-proofing employment for generations to come, our guess is that we shall be hearing a lot more from this self-styled UK battery champion.