Lyten CEO Dan Cook has presented his plans to the state government of Schleswig-Holstein for the battery cell factory currently under construction in Heide, which Lyten intends to take over through the purchase of Northvolt. It became clear that Lyten wants to scale back its plans for the site compared to what Northvolt had originally intended.
As is well known, it came as quite a surprise when Lyten announced at the beginning of August that it intended to take over the sites of the insolvent battery cell manufacturer Northvolt in Sweden and Germany. Lyten has now obtained the necessary approvals, but the purchase process is not yet complete: “The sale process is ongoing and details are subject to confidentiality,” said Lyten CEO Dan Cook.
At a meeting with the state government in Kiel, Cook spoke about his company’s plans in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein. Northvolt wanted to build a gigafactory there with an annual battery production capacity of 15 GWh. Northvolt itself had planned to create around 3,000 jobs at the Northvolt Drei facility in Heide, plus 6,000 to 7,000 jobs at suppliers and service providers.
However, it now appears that Lyten wants to stick with the location and is planning its launch: “The sales process is ongoing and details are confidential, but in principle, we are planning a phased and modular approach for the battery cell factory near Heide, with various chemistries – from Northvolt’s NMC lithium-ion technology to Lyten’s proprietary lithium-sulfur technology – and with an intelligent, data-driven manufacturing strategy,” according to Cook.
However, the plans are now significantly smaller: Lyten only wants to create 1,000 jobs, not 3,000 as Northvolt had initially planned. This was stated by SSW economic policy spokesperson Sybilla Nitsch after a meeting of the economic committee in the state parliament, which Cook also attended. However, no concrete figures have yet been announced regarding the production capacity of the Lyten factory in Heide.
It also remains unclear how the construction of the factory in Heide will be financed: the federal and state governments had originally pledged 700 million euros in funding for the project, but this cannot simply be transferred to another company. Lyten CEO Cook pointed to the private company’s long tradition of raising capital and emphasised that it is important for private companies to use private funds for the majority of their development activities. State Economics Minister Claus Ruhe Madsen (CDU) considers it positive that Cook is accustomed to operating with private money. “But of course he also says that he expects Europe, i.e. Brussels, to come up with a tech programme to some extent.”
marketscreener.com, ndr.de, sueddeutsche.de (both in German)
