3 minute read - 31st May 2022
Britishvolt to build £200m West Midlands battery scale-up facility
Britishvolt has announced it will anchor its UK battery scale-up facilities in the West Midlands, with an investment exceeding £200m. Partnering with Prologis, Britishvolt will lease a facility at Prologis Park Hams Hall, enabling Britishvolt to rapidly ramp up cells that are production ready to be manufactured in larger volumes at its Northumberland gigafactory.
Britishvolt says it has already developed pre-A battery samples at WMG in Warwick and is scaling up its unique A-sample cell formulations at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry. This new £200m investment, coupled with the unique regional battery expertise, will enable Britishvolt to develop new formats and formulations helping to make both higher performance and more affordable cells for the world’s future electric cars and commercial vehicles. The new scale-up facilities will also create and sustain upwards of 150 highly skilled technology jobs.
Britishvolt has already confirmed MoUs with Lotus Cars and Aston Martin Lagonda, which, alongside other commitments to be announced shortly, have cumulative demand in excess of 7GWh in 2024 and 2025, and set the stage for the full 38GWh factory capacity that will be supplied annually from its gigafactory site in Northumberland.
Britishvolt is to invest £200m to build a UK battery cell scale-up facility and create 150 jobs at Prologis Park Hams Hall in the West Midlands / Picture: Prologis
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Paul Franklin, property director at Britishvolt, said: “This is another important milestone for Britishvolt, UK plc and its world class automotive industry. The UK’s battery ecosystem is a global leader in integrated technology development and industrialisation with the Warwick Manufacturing Group, Faraday Institution, UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and the Advanced Propulsion Centre. I am delighted to see Britishvolt lead the UK’s journey into re-industrialisation with the first full-scale battery gigaplant. The new scale-up facilities announced today will help the UK build on its home-grown battery intellectual property and level up the country ready for the energy transition.”
A new West Midlands ‘battery corridor’
• Hams Hall is destined to become a centre of excellence for all things EV/electrification, with major automakers close by.
• The facility will complement the Britishvolt value proposition for customers at Cambois, Northumberland and support the smooth startup of gigaplant operations in 2024.
• Practical completion of the development is anticipated in July with fit out and equipment installation to be undertaken through to end Q3 2023.
• A customer and visitor centre will showcase activities at the park
Tom Price, capital leasing & deployment director at Prologis UK, added: “Partnering with innovative technology brand Britishvolt has been a pleasure. The reputation of Hams Hall and the location’s connections to the UK automotive sector has allowed us to embark on a wider conversation with Britishvolt. With battery technology seen as the way forward, it’s exciting to be working in this growing sector.
“Prologis is committed to embedding sustainability into every aspect of our business. When looking at ‘last-mile’ logistics, that is the final delivery of goods to people’s homes, it’s clear that the work Britishvolt are embarking on will contribute to reducing emissions in supply chains.”
Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “Britishvolt’s investment in the West Midlands is another seismic vote of confidence both in the future of our region and our automotive prowess. We are already the heartland of the UK’s automotive industry with the country’s biggest car manufacturer, Europe’s largest research centre of its kind, the UK’s only battery industrialisation centre, and a world-leading supply chain. So, it is incredibly exciting that as we accelerate our gigafactory plans for Coventry Airport, Britishvolt is adding its expertise to our cluster. I am determined the West Midlands becomes a global leader in the research and production of state-of-the-art battery technology, and today’s announcement is another step towards achieving that.”