The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a €480 million loan agreement with LG Chem Wroclaw Energy, the Polish subsidiary of the LG Chem Group that was established to develop the group’s battery production facility in Europe.
The financing will be used for the construction and operation of highly automated and innovative manufacturing facilities for advanced lithium-ion (li-ion) cells and batteries for battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs). The EIB financing will cover around a third of the total project costs, estimated at €1.5 billion. The remainder will come from the company’s own resources and from other financing sources.
The additional manufacturing facilities will be located on the industrial site of LG Chem Wroclaw Energy in south-west Poland.
The project supplements smaller production facilities on the same site and presents several novelties, including a fully smart factory with several newly developed cutting-edge technologies to mass-produce the latest generation of high energy density li-ion electrodes, cells, modules and battery packs, thereby significantly improving energy density, fast-charging capability, safety and cost-efficiency.
The EIB-backed project will have an annual production capacity of over 35 GWh, which can potentially power more than 500 000 zero-emission electric cars per year and therefore contribute to the transition from fossil fuel-powered internal combustion engine-based vehicles toward electromobility and sustainable transport.
Teresa Czerwinska, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, who oversees operations in Poland, said: “This first EIB operation with LG Chem Wroclaw Energy is significant for many reasons. It helps Europe to build a critical mass in electric vehicle battery production at a pivotal time of electric vehicle commercialisation in Europe; it promotes a shift to electromobility and to a greener automotive industry, and it helps create new qualified jobs in an industrial region in transition to a new economic model. Today’s operation proves that with the right partners and the right projects in place we can combine cohesion objectives with innovation and strong climate action.”
The implementation of the new investment programme will enable the company to ramp up its battery capacity output to ca. 65 GWh, making the Polish facility one of the largest lithium-ion cell factories in the world. Moreover, more than 1 800 jobs will be created at the Wroclaw site, taking the total workforce up to more than 6 000 full-time employees by end-2022.
Original source: EIB
Published on 26 March 2020
