The Grenoble company, supported by Renault, Schneider Electric and Arkema, could create 1,200 posts from the first phase, and many indirect jobs.
Le Monde with AFP
The third French giga-factory will settle in Dunkirk, not far from the two other battery plants for electric cars, and with up to 1,200 jobs at the key from the first phase. The Start-up Grenoble Verkor, supported by Renault, Schneider Electric and Arkema, announced, Tuesday 1 February, have chosen the city of the North to implement its first “Giga Factory” of low battery cells carbon.
This very symbolic announcement for the future of the automotive industry in France was made almost simultaneously on Tuesday night by the company, the President (the Republicans) of the Regional Council of the Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand and the President of The Emmanuel Macron Republic. “This is a project for which there was European competition, and which for its first phase relates to 1,200 direct jobs and 3,000 indirect jobs”, welcomed the latter in an interview with the North voice.
This is the third battery factory that sets up in France, with that of the Sino-Japanese AESC-Envision in the “Electricity” pole of Renault, near Douai (North), and that of Stellantis and of Totalnergies in Douvrin (North), where production must begin in 2023.
“We stopped industrial hemorrhage”
While Europe targets 25% of world battery production by 2030 (compared to 3% in 2020), to catch up on China and protect its automotive industry, dozens of factories projects of batteries were announced on the continent. The Northvolt electric battery group announced at the end of December 2021, having launched the production of the first “Giga-factory” of a European group, in Sweden.
The location of Verkor in Dunkerque “makes it possible to make Hauts-de-France the” valley of the battery “, an essential segment to produce on our floor the electric cars of tomorrow,” said Emmanuel Macron. “Industrial hemorrhage was stopped three years ago by reforms that no one dared to conduct in decades. We changed the image of France,” he said.
The first battery delivery of the Dunkerque plant is scheduled for July 2025, with a capacity that needs to evolve from 16 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2025 to 50 GWh in 2030, either equipping several hundred thousand vehicles Electric each year. The project includes “low-carbon and high-performance” batteries, so for sports and high-end vehicles, such as Renault’s electric alpine futures, manufactured in Normandy.
A potential of 2 000 direct jobs
According to the Hauts-de-France region, the facility represents “a total investment of 2.5 billion euros and a term potential of nearly 2,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs”. More specifically, 800 direct jobs are expected for “the first phase of the project”. A “Horizon 2028-2030”, a “potential of about 2,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs is announced”.
Xavier Bertrand praised “a very good news for the Hauts-de-France, because it will create jobs of course, but also because it is a recognition of our economic strategy.” The construction of the plant on a site of 150 hectares must begin in 2023, after a public consultation process. Research and development will remain based in Grenoble, said Verkor.