Urgent’ action needed to keep UK in gigafactory race, MPs told
The UK is running out of time to kickstart a homegrown battery-production industry, key figures have said.
The industry, which has been eyed as a high-value growth area for contractors, needs major investment to become viable.
Wates is delivering the only so-called gigafactory currently under construction in the UK. The Envision AESC facility in Sunderland (pictured) will supply Nissan electric vehicles. The £500m deal, signed in December, is the contractor’s largest ever contract.
ISG won a £300m design-and-build contract to deliver Britishvolt’s facility in Northumberland, but the project was scrapped when the start-up went into administration earlier this year. A deal to acquire its assets and continue production was meant to have been completed last month but has stalled. The contractor did not lose any money as a result of the administration.
Stephen Gifford, chief economist at battery-research body the Faraday Institution, told MPs at parliament’s business and trade committee on Tuesday (9 May) that projections for industrial demand show 10 20Gwh production plants are needed by 2040.
Half of these are required by 2030, he said, meaning work needs to begin imminently.
He said the UK is “behind” international competitors, with more than 100 set to be located in China, and 30 currently under development across Europe.
Alan Hollis, chief executive of AMTE Power, a battery-production company planning a facility in Dundee, also appeared at the committee.
He called for extra government support for such facilities, citing the more favourable conditions for investors given by US and European government incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies.
“What we need is the extra support just to help bridge through this period of having the technology and developing the technology and then building the gigafactory. It so important that we find the mechanisms to do that and really quite urgently,” he said.
“Time is not on our side and we need to be taking action now.”