Northvolt Urges Swift Action on State Aid for Heide Factory
German-focused investor Northvolt has issued a plea for prompt resolution regarding the promised state subsidies for its planned battery factory in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein. Christofer Haux, Northvolt's managing director in Germany, expressed his company's need for a swift decision within days, according to a statement in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.
Haux emphasized that while Northvolt maintains faith in the German government's earlier commitments, time is of the essence. "We're not looking at weeks or months like some might assume for finding a solution," Haux stated.
The crux of the situation revolves around a 550 million euro state funding package, which was originally slated to be provided from the Climate Transformation Fund. However, a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court last year declared the reallocation of funds in the federal government's financial planning to be inadmissible, raising questions about the potential availability of the funds.
In a proactive response, the state parliament in Kiel passed an emergency motion on Thursday, proposing to set aside up to 137 million euros of promised state aid for Ukraine from an existing emergency loan. The motion comes as the parliament had previously declared a budget emergency for 2023 and 2024 [1].
A recent announcement of a 600 million euro convertible bond from state bank KfW for Northvolt was reportedly unaffected by the Federal Constitutional Court's ruling. Nurturing ambitions to manufacture battery cells for electric vehicles at the factory in Heide from 2026, Northvolt expects its 4.5 billion euro investment to create 3,000 jobs. The company has already invested approximately 100 million euros in the construction project in Heide [2].
Sources:
[1]
[2] Northvolt's press release dated August 17, 2022, available on
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