Friday 31 July 2020

Schneider Electric joins coalition for the development of €1.6bn gigafactory in France

Schneider Electric  is working on an ambitious plan to build a €1.6 billion (£1.4bn) gigafactory in France.

The project is led by the French industrial company Verkor, which has announced it will also work with EIT InnoEnergy and the property firm GROUPE IDEC, to build the facility, which is estimated to create more than 2,000 jobs.

Construction of the project begins in 2022 and with production to begin one year later, with an initial capacity of 16GWh of battery cells which will later increase to 50GWh.

Diego Pavia, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy, said: “The first Verkor Gigafactory will help bridge the gap between Europe’s planned demand and currently forecasted European supply in this decade.”

Christel Galbrun-Noel, Mobility Segment President at Schneider Electric, commented: “This brings together the best of energy management and industrial expertise to build green, competitive batteries as part of our commitment to helping the European transition to EVs.”

If you enjoyed this story, you can sign up to our newsletter for future Net Zero - and if you are interested in hearing about all things energy, you can also sign up to the Energy Live News weekly email.