July 7, 2022: UK battery cells and gigafactory developer Britishvolt has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s Posco Chemical for battery material supplies, the companies said on June 30.
Under the terms of the agreement, Posco would supply cathode and anode active battery materials that could lead to a longer-term joint development agreement, the partners said.
Britishvolt founder and CEO Orral Nadjari said the agreement “paves the way to providing Britishvolt with a secure supply of active battery materials as we start to ramp up pilot production, prior to switching to volume manufacture of battery cells at our gigaplant facility in Northumberland in the coming years”.
Britishvolt said on June 7 that its first gigaplant in Northumberland would use large scale production lines from Swiss manufacturer Bühler for the manufacture of electrode slurries for the first go-to-market phase of 4.8GWh, which will be expanded to 38GWh towards the end of the decade.
The battery developer’s ramp-up and production lines are to be commissioned in September 2023 and spring 2024, respectively.
On February 15, Britishvolt said it had secured the further backing of an existing investor, mining giant Glencore, to launch a £200 million ($270 million) funding round.
Photo: Posco Chemical CEO Min Kyung-zoon (left) and Britishvolt CEO Orral Nadjari.