On a journey out of Skellefte氓, an industrial town in the north of Sweden, I pass several large factories. But they are all dwarfed by my destination 鈥� , the first battery 鈥済igafactory鈥� to begin production in Europe.
鈥淵ou need to see it to believe it,鈥� says Anders Thor of , the firm behind the factory. He isn鈥檛 wrong. As Thor points out, the Pentagon 鈥� the largest office building in the world and home to the US defence department 鈥� could fit into the site with plenty of room to spare.
Much of Northvolt Ett, which stretches way off to hills in the distance, is still a building site. Wearing safety boots, I trudge across the hot, dusty gravel to the side that has been finished 鈥� a series of enormous grey buildings where battery production is being slowly ramped up after beginning in 2021.
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When it is finished in around 2026, Northvolt Ett will employ 4000 people and produce 60 gigawatt hours of lithium battery cells a year, enough for a million medium-sized electric cars. Everything here is on a vast scale. Eventually, a 1-kilometre corridor will run across the site to link buildings, says Northvolt鈥檚 Sanna B盲ckstr枚m.
But scale isn鈥檛 the only claim to fame here. Northvolt says that, once fully operational, the batteries it produces will be the greenest in the world.
You have probably heard the myth that electric cars don鈥檛 reduce greenhouse gas emissions because so much carbon dioxide is emitted to produce them. This isn鈥檛 true 鈥� electric cars emit less than fossil-fuel ones, even where electricity comes mostly from fossil fuels. But manufacturing electric cars does currently produce more emissions than manufacturing conventional cars because of the batteries 鈥� and that is because the process is still largely powered by fossil fuels.
鈥淏atteries so far have been produced mainly on coal power,鈥� says Thor. 鈥淚f you use coal power, you repeat the mistakes of the past, creating a large carbon footprint.鈥�
That is why this factory is in the north of Sweden where there is plenty of hydropower and renewable electricity. The emissions per battery made here are 70 per cent lower than those made in China, says Thor, and Northvolt鈥檚 aim is to get that figure to 90 per cent.
There is no way to independently verify this claim, but simply siting a factory in Sweden rather than China would reduce the carbon footprint of a battery by 40 per cent, a concluded. That is based on how much electricity comes from low-carbon sources in these countries.
At Northvolt Ett, there are separate buildings for each of the three main steps in the manufacturing process. It starts with the production of powders containing the raw materials that make up the anode and cathode. We aren鈥檛 allowed into this building, as respirators have to be worn inside.
In the second step, housed in two buildings more than 340 metres long and 110 metres wide, the powders are turned into a slurry using giant mixers, explains B盲ckstr枚m. These slurries are spread on giant rolls of very thin foil and then dried in enormous ovens. One tiny part of these ovens is the only internal part of the factory I am allowed to photograph.
The anode and cathode are made on different sides of the building before being interfolded and placed in a cell, which is then filled with electrolyte. The process takes place in positive-pressure rooms to keep out contaminants and is largely automated.
Finally, there is the formation and ageing building. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a cheese factory,鈥� says B盲ckstr枚m. I am not allowed in there either, but basically when a lithium battery is first charged, a film forms on the anode whose properties determine battery performance. Afterwards, batteries are monitored for several weeks to ensure their quality.
Off in the distance, B盲ckstr枚m points out the latest building to be finished, which will house the largest battery recycling plant in the world. It will recover lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt, and supply half of the materials needed for cathode production here.
Northvolt鈥檚 efforts to make battery production greener go well beyond the factory gates. It is buying raw materials from nearby mines where possible and also intends to use electric trucks to ferry materials to and from the nearby harbour.
The company has also set up a test site for electric planes at the small airport nearby. Northvolt is developing lithium metal batteries specifically for aviation, with an energy density up to twice that of conventional lithium-ion versions. The former have anodes made of lithium metal, reducing weight compared with the coated copper foil anodes I saw being made.
I leave Skellefte氓 greatly encouraged. It is fantastic to see a company investing billions to do things at the speed and scale needed if we are to get anywhere near net zero by 2050. But as massive as it is, Northvolt Ett isn鈥檛 enough. With more than 10 million cars sold in Europe every year, we still need a lot more battery gigafactories.
Michael Le Page鈥檚 trip was paid for by Vargas, the parent company of Northvolt
