Press release -
Morrow Batteries establishes a battery innovation centre and pilot factory
Later this year Morrow Batteries will start construction of its Battery Innovation Centre and Pilot Factory in Southern Norway. The facilities will allow Morrow Batteries to manufacture and qualify the world’s most sustainable battery cell, in addition to industrialize next generation battery technology.
«This is an important milestone for us, as we are taking our first steps to establish Morrow Industrialization Centre. With this world leading infrastructure, we will be able to conduct costumer qualification testing and accelerate the development and industrialization of new battery technology. We are bridging the gap between component development, cell design and large volume manufacturing», says Terje Andersen, CEO of Morrow Batteries.
The Pilot factory will be located at Eyde Energi Park, just outside the city of Arendal, co-located with Morrow's planned Gigafactory. The Battery Innovation Centre will be located at University of Agder campus in Grimstad. The facilities are parts of Morrows Industrialization Centre, and will be the first facility in Norway for costumer qualification.
The Battery Innovation Centre will be Morrow ‘s competence centre of excellence and responsible for developing and commercializing new battery technology. Such as their in-house developed high-energy sulphur- technology (Li-S), and the cobalt free LNMO-cathode material developed by the partner Haldor Topsøe. This facility allows Morrow to gradually scale and tune the design, preparing for further scaling at the Pilot Factory.
The ground floor of the Innovation Centre will be approximately 2000 m2, with several floors of lab facilities and office spaces. The construction will start in Q3 2021, and be the work space for around 30 employees. The building will be built by and leased from the real estate developer J.B. Ugland, in a close collaboration with Morrow.
Pilot Factory
The Pilot Factory will have an annual capacity of 500 MWh, and will be used for costumer qualification, and scaling the technology towards our planned Gigafactory.
The Pilot Factory will cover approximately 12000 m2, with construction starting in Q4 2021. The facility will employ 90 specialists.
In the centre of the Battery coast
The facilities will form a “hub” within the Battery coast, utilising the advantages of minerals from world leading process industry, lowest (renewable) energy prices in Europe and logistic advantage towards the European markets.
“From here we are establishing an entire regional ecosystem around the battery value chain together with our industrial partners. Morrow Industrialization Centre will be one of the first battery industrialization centres in the world covering all aspects of the current Li-ion technology platform, and at the same time capable of incorporating and accelerating the industrialization of next generation technologies”, says Andersen.
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Morrow Batteries AS (“Morrow”) is an industrial technology company based in Norway. In face of the green energy transition, the Morrow strategy is twofold; delivering current technology products and developing next-generation batteries that are cost-effective and more sustainable. These new batteries will feature the breakthrough cathode material (LNMO) - eliminating the need for cobalt and reducing the use of nickel and lithium, while maximizing the utilization of readily available and clean manganese. The industrial scale-up was founded in 2020. Headquartered in Arendal, Norway, it now counts 100+ battery specialists across four offices internationally. Learn more at morrowbatteries.com and @MorrowBatteries on LinkedIn.
