Batteries

- Battery production can create new, green jobs and more export legs for the Norwegian economy to stand on. We need that now, says CEO of NHO Ole Erik Almlid.

Agder Energi and Bjørn Rune Gjelstens NOAH AS are two heavy industrial partners who are now starting Morrow Batteries. The initiative originally comes from Frederic Hauge and the Environmental Foundation Bellona, ​​who have been working with the technology and development of the company since 2015. Bellona will continue with a smaller stake in the company.

- Battery production will soon grow to become a new global industry. Norway has a double competitive advantage because we already have a world-class process industry and because we have access to clean energy and strong research environments. This makes sense both as an investment and as a contribution to the development of climate-friendly technology, says investor Bjørn Rune Gjelsten.

New value cluster

SINTEF, Innovation Norway, Eydeklyngen and raw material suppliers are among the partners already involved in the project. Location close to the continent, good access to raw materials and a surplus of renewable energy make Agder stand out as a suitable location for sustainable battery production.

- Morrow's goal is to develop a new, green large-scale industry. If Norway manages to take 2,5 per cent of the European battery cell market, according to SINTEF, it will provide around 10.000 new jobs. Hydropower has been decisive for the development of Norwegian industry. Now our renewable energy can be central to a new chapter in Norwegian industrial history, says CEO Steffen Syvertsen of Agder Energi.

Morrow Batteries will build a research center and manufacturing facility to supply rapidly growing markets for batteries with both today's and tomorrow's technology.

- Five years of hard work has made this technology investable. We have developed patents, gathered expertise and raised capital. This has formed the basis for a potential new industrial adventure with enormous value creation, employment and export potential, says Frederic Hauge, founder of Bellona.

Fast growing market

Early this week, the IEA released a new report showing that sales of electric cars increased by 90 percent in France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain in the first four months of the year. The value of the European battery cell market alone is expected to grow towards NOK 1000 billion in annual turnover in 2040, according to the SINTEF report "New opportunities for value creation in Norway". Sweden's Northvolt's planned battery factory has already acquired VW as an owner and is valued at close to 20 billion Swedish kroner. The potential for establishing more battery factories is enormous. The challenge is that current battery production is far from sustainable. Not just because of the mineral use. Today, a large part of all electric car batteries used at European car factories are produced in China, Japan and Korea. And most electric car batteries are produced using highly polluting coal power.

- We are going through an electrification of important functions in society. Sustainable battery production will be a major competitive advantage in that transition, says Bjørn Rune Gjelsten.

- The entire battery value chain is relevant in Norway. We need a national, action-oriented battery strategy, which makes it possible to make a big investment quickly, says Ole Erik Almlid.

Circular industrial chain

Terje Andersen, who has extensive experience from international leadership roles at EY and PwC and who currently leads EY's digital innovation efforts in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, will lead the new company. He emphasizes that this investment requires a holistic Norwegian battery investment where risk-averse investors, industry players, research and innovation environments work for the same cause.

- Access to batteries is one of the biggest challenges for the green transition, and we are sitting on advantages that can make Norway a major battery-producing nation. We have spent two years building the ecosystem around Morrow. When we now move into the market phase, it will be with two heavy players behind us and in close cooperation with Norway's leading environments in the process industry, research and education, says Terje Andersen, managing director. in Morrow Batteries.

Morrow's reason for establishing the company is that it is important to immediately start large-scale battery production to cover the need in the explosively growing markets.

At the start-up, the company has secured expertise, financing, agreements, strategy and a technology platform that provides a solid basis for quickly starting up large-scale production of today's technology with Li-ion batteries and at the same time the development of tomorrow's Lithium Sulfur batteries. There will be a great need for both types of battery technology in the coming years.

The battery battle started with A-ha

Bellona has worked with batteries since Frederic Hauge and the pop group A-ha together imported Norway's first electric car in 1988. Through the work to implement the Norwegian electric car advantages, Bellona is internationally recognized for having accelerated the electrification of the transport sector. The collaboration with Tesla since 2008 meant that more than 10 percent of the company's car production in the first years went to Norway. This was of great importance to Tesla at the start.

- My starting point is that if we are to stop the escalating climate disaster, the world must switch from fossil to renewable energy production as soon as possible. A critical factor in ensuring stable energy access from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is that you must be able to store the energy. That was the background to why I started working on developing tomorrow's battery technology, says the Bellona founder who three years ago presented the work of BEBA and Graphene Batteries to Bjørn Rune Gjelsten, says Frederic Hauge

He started work on investing in a large-scale battery industry in Norway back in 2010. The collaboration with Graphene Batteries came into place in 2015. This collaboration later formed the basis for Bellona starting the battery company BEBA together with NOAH and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten as an investor in 2017. BEBA has since invested, developed and documented the technical breakthroughs in Graphene Batteries, in the development of the technology for the batteries of the future and solutions that improve conventional battery technology.

BEBA has achieved significant results through its work with Graphene Batteries. They have obtained research funding equivalent to NOK 18 million from Innovation Norway, the Research Council and the European Commission. The funds are now supplied to Morrow Batteries in the takeover of the company's rights, an established research staff, laboratory and a technology platform for both today's and tomorrow's battery technology.