Dutch Startup Plans €1.6 Billion Battery Plant in China

Dutch battery startup Lithium Werks BV intends to open a €1.6 billion ($1.9 billion) factory in China in 2021 to make battery cells for electric cars, industrial applications and energy storage systems.

The giant facility will have capacity to make enough battery cells to power 160,000 vehicles with 8 gigawatt-hours of energy. The plant will be built near Shanghai through a venture with state-owned Zhejiang Jiashan Economic and Technological Development Zone Industry Corp.

Lithium Werksplans to finance the project by selling as much as 30% of its equity and finance the balance through a consortium of Chinese banks. The Dutch company aims to build global array of 10 cell factories with an installed capacity of 500 GWh by 2030.

Chairman Kees Koolen tells Bloomberg News that Lithium Werks chose China for the first such plant because the country moved quickly to approve the deal. European countries, he complains to Bloomberg News, are “just doing a lot of talking.”

Lithium Werks is an alliance of relatively new companies, each with expertise in a different aspect of battery making. Earlier this year the company acquired Netherlands-based Super B Lithium Power, Valene Technology and the industrial division of A123 Systems.