Cidetec leads an initiative to design Europe’s giga factories

The industry’s leading European stakeholders are coming together in San Sebastián to define the foundations for an independent, efficient, and sustainable production of electrodes and battery cells.

To achieve the 2030 targets, EU battery cell production capacity must increase from the current 60 GWh to 900 GWh. Europe must therefore consolidate a large-scale battery cell manufacturing value chain that facilitates a sustainable and environmentally friendly transition, minimises associated emissions, optimises battery performance and cost, and assures circularity.

The European GIGABAT initiative was conceived as a two-pronged response to these issues:

On the one hand, promoting the EU machinery and suppliers needed to gain technological and industrial independence. In other words, machinery developed and built entirely in Europe that allows us to achieve a leading position in production and efficient use of resources.

The development of this type of machinery aims to minimise energy consumption, eradicate air and water pollution, and incorporate intelligent control processes in order to minimise waste, thereby reducing costs and environmental impact. In addition, such machinery is anticipated to operate at extremely high levels of productivity with smart quality control systems based on Industry 4.0 principles.

On the other hand, the project will encourage collaboration between industrial-scale cell manufacturers, battery processing equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, and grid energy suppliers, all of whom will implement sustainability and efficiency standards for the flow of materials and energy throughout the production chain. Some of the topics to be investigated will be the environmental impact of different machinery, production line configurations and factory layouts in order to come up with proposals for best practice.

The GIGABAT project, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme and led by CIDETEC Energy Storage, aims to strengthen the EU cell manufacturing industry and its value chain, and to involve its key players in the development of GEN3b (Li-ion) batteries. Forming part of the project are: PowerCo SE (the subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group for the manufacture of batteries), Verkor, Manz Italy, the Technical University of Braunschweig, Izertis, Comau, Heraeus Noblelight, Matthews International, Jagenberg, RISE, Ferroglobe Innovation, Zeppeling Silos, Netzsch Trockenmahltechnik, ICOS and the European association of pilot battery plants LiPLANET, of which CIDETEC is also a member. On the 4th and 5th of July, the consortium meets in San Sebastian to launch what promises to be one of the most important initiatives in the development of an independent European battery industry.