The billion-dollar investment to build a large battery factory in Emmen has been shelved. That is what Deputy Henk Brink (VVD) said in the Radio Drenthe program cassata.
The battery manufacturer’s plan to build a ‘gigafactory’ in the Northern Netherlands dates from last year. Not only Emmen was in the picture for this; the Eemshaven in Groningen also seemed an important candidate for a location.
In April, a delegation from the province and municipality of Emmen traveled to Taiwan in the hope of doing good business with the battery manufacturer.
Deputy Brink, who does not comment on the opportunities of the Eemshaven, in any case rules out the factory coming to Emmen. The VVD member points to the less favorable conditions in the Netherlands compared to France, a country that can present much better credentials. “There you have such conditions in the field of power and electricity. The country, for example, focuses more on nuclear power plants,” he emphasizes. “These are conditions that we cannot match.”
The new factory involved an investment of 800 million euros, an amount that could later have risen to 2 billion euros. According to the company, the financing was already 85 percent completed in August last year.
The production site would also create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs. According to the manufacturer, their batteries last ten times longer than the commonly used lithium-ion batteries. In addition, they would be safer, more durable, and faster to charge.
Now that the battery factory’s foreign adventure has been cancelled, Brink hopes that another major player will consider settling in Drenthe. “We want to keep in touch, including with Eurocell. There is also good contact with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate”, he keeps hope alive.