Energy storage for electric vehicles czech republic
The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade is betting on the Plzeň region, in the Western part of the country, as the best location to open Czechia's first gigafactory producing batteries for electric vehicles. Contact online >>
The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade is betting on the Plzeň region, in the Western part of the country, as the best location to open Czechia''s first gigafactory producing batteries for electric vehicles.
“This project is essential for the future of the Czech economy, in which the automotive industry plays the biggest role and its transformation is largely related to supporting clean mobility,” said the Minister of Industry and Trade, Jozef Síkela. “It may be the largest investment in the history of the Czech Republic and it will have a fundamental impact on maintaining the competitiveness of our automotive industry for decades to come."
The Minister reminded that it is imperative to switch to electromobility: without a clean transformation of the industry, up to 37,000 jobs are at risk, as well as financial losses in the amount of 128 billion Koruna (approximately 5.2 billion euros).
Petr Očko, Deputy Minister for Digitisation and Innovation underlined that the government is having talks with the municipalities in order to meet all of their needs. Among them, the preservation of infrastructure for the needs of the army, which used the selected location as a reserve airport; and the conservation and protection of the surrounding environment.
“The gigafactory will create up to 4,000 highly qualified jobs," added Mr Očko. "It is also an opportunity to acquire unique know-how in research, development and production of batteries and connect Czech universities to the battery centre of excellence in Salzgitter, Germany.”
The company that could take over the site is the Volkswagen Group which announced a decision to expand in Central Europe, after launching its own cell factory in Salzgitter, where production will start in 2025. The Group is actually considering also other neighbouring countries such as Poland and Hungary, already ''experts'' in battery production: the LG factory in Wrocław is Europe’s largest and the world’s leading producer of lithium-ion batteries for the automotive industry, while CATL recently announced the construction of a 100 gigawatt-hours (GWh) battery plant in Hungary.
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The Czech government has approved an MoU with the majority state-owned energy company CEZ to build a “gigafactory” in the country to produce batteries for electric cars. The investment is to amount to around two billion euros.
Rumour has it that the Volkswagen Group or its Czech subsidiary Skoda and LG could also be involved in the project. This is reported by the news website Seznam Zprávy, among others. While it is not official, it is not far-fetched either: Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlicek recently told Reuters that the state was holding talks with two potential partners – including Volkswagen – and that they were prepared to offer incentives worth billions to bring at least one cell production plant into the country.
The news agency CTK further specifies that CEZ is ready to participate in the project both as an investor and energy and lithium supplier. Other quotations from the memorandum picked up by the media read: The Gigafactory is a “strategic project that could accelerate the transformation of both energy and automotive industry”. Furthermore, the project could “create a unique opportunity for transforming structurally affected regions in the Czech Republic”. The paper also states that cooperation in the battery supply chain should be strengthened, for example, concerning the domestic mining of lithium or battery recycling.
The Czech Republic has the largest lithium deposit in Europe. Around three per cent of the world’s lithium reserves are said to be found in the Czech Ore Mountains. However, the lithium is contained in a granular rock, which has not made mining lucrative. But that could change with rising demand and, ergo, rising commodity prices.
In any case, the CEZ Group sees a business in lithium mining, just as it does in battery cell production in general. Last year, the energy supplier already invested in the Bratislava-based company InoBat Auto, which is planning a cell factory in Slovakia. The initial plan is to build a 100 MWh production line in Voderady before building a 10 GWh factory in 2024.
The CEZ Group consists of more than 100 individual companies and is, by its own account, the largest energy supplier in the Czech Republic. The conglomerate is also active in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. According to the company’s website, projects are also under development in Germany and France.
“The governments of the Czech Republic and Slovakia have announced a partnership in the field of electromobility, and this is one of the projects that fulfil this initiative,” Pavel Cyrani, deputy chairman of CEZ Group, said last year, referring to InoBat Auto’s planned cell factory. Even then, Cyrani added that another such “gigafactory” could be built in the Czech Republic and, in addition, the mining of lithium in Krušné Hory, i.e. the Czech part of the Ore Mountains, was conceivable. So the current memorandum has been casting its shadow for a long time.
Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic have several car plants and are trying to preserve these plants and jobs with the change to electric mobility.
With reporting by Cora Werwitzke, France.
euractiv , marketscreener , twitter , reuters
PRAGUE - The Czech Industry Ministry and majority state-owned utility CEZ on Tuesday pushed ahead with plans for an electric vehicle battery plant in the central European country as they look for partners in the more than $2 billion project.
The Czech state is also looking to attract a partner from the car or battery industry for the project that could have annual capacity of 40 GWh. Industry Minister Karel Havlicek said talks have been held with Volkswagen, which owns Czech carmaker Skoda Auto, and also South Korea''s LG.
On the talks with other partners, Havlicek said that it could not be ruled out that a second plant project would emerge in future but that was not the goal of the state at the moment.
Havlicek has said the state was ready to offer incentives for an investor.
The country is one of the locations that the German auto group Volkswagen is considering for one of six battery cell plants it aims to build in Europe by 2030.
A VW executive said this month the group was in "deep" discussions on a plant in the central European region but no decision had been taken yet.
CEZ has looked more at the development of electromobility as the car sector - a key part of the Czech economy - transitions toward an electric future.
CEZ is part of a project for the potential mining of lithium, a material critical for EV batteries, in the Czech Republic.
($1 = 21.8140 Czech crowns)
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