Global Battery Race Heats Up With Billions for Europe’s Northvolt

livemint.com:

One of the world’s most valuable battery startups is raising $3.4 billion in debt from the European Union and a group of banks including JPMorgan Chase, accelerating a race to build more batteries outside China and take advantage of a tidal wave of clean-energy subsidies. Europe’s Northvolt plans to use the funding to grow battery production at a factory in northern Sweden for customers such as Volkswagen and BMW. It also plans to expand a recycling facility next door that will convert scrap metal and old batteries into reusable battery materials.

The funding is one of the largest transactions for a clean-energy company in recent years. It highlights a push from investors and policymakers to channel billions of dollars into making batteries that can power electric cars and store energy when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining to speed the shift away from fossil fuels. China controls swaths of the battery supply chain from metals processing to cell assembly, a concern for Western countries that are throwing billions of dollars in tax credits, loans and grants at companies to kick-start their own supply chains.

The 2022 U.S. climate law has driven other countries to bolster their own subsidies to attract clean-energy investments. The European Union’s investment bank has now contributed close to $1 billion toward Northvolt’s Sweden factory, part of its push to establish a homegrown battery company.

“Many countries have recognized that this is a critical infrastructure piece in the green transition," Peter Carlsson, Northvolt’s chief executive and a former Tesla supply-chain manager, said in an interview. Northvolt is also refinancing $1.6 billion in debt that it had raised previously. The company is accelerating