EIB and LG Chem Wroclaw Energy Inks Loan Agreement worth €480 Million for EV Battery Production

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced that it has signed a €480 million loan agreement with LG Chem Wroclaw Energy in Europe. The financing will be used for the construction and operation of highly automated and innovative manufacturing facilities for advanced lithium-ion (li-ion) cells and batteries for battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs). The EIB financing will cover around a third of the total project costs, estimated at €1.5 billion. The remainder will come from the company’s own resources and from other financing sources.

Teresa Czerwinska, VP of the European Investment Bank, who oversees operations in Poland, said, “This first EIB operation with LG Chem Wroclaw Energy is significant for many reasons. It helps Europe to build a critical mass in electric vehicle battery production at a pivotal time of electric vehicle commercialization in Europe; it promotes a shift to electromobility and to a greener automotive industry; and it helps create new qualified jobs in an industrial region in transition to a new economic model.”

The additional manufacturing facilities will be situated on the industrial site of LG Chem Wroclaw Energy in southwest Poland.

The project supplements smaller production facilities on the same site and presents several innovations, including a fully smart factory with several newly developed cutting-edge technologies to mass-produce the latest generation of high energy density li-ion electrodes, cells, modules and battery packs, thereby significantly improving energy density, fast-charging capability, safety and cost efficiency.

The EIB-backed project will have an annual production capacity of over 35 GWh, which can potentially power more than 500,000 zero-emission electric cars per year and therefore contribute to the transition from fossil fuel-powered internal combustion engine-based vehicles toward electromobility and sustainable transport.

The implementation of the new investment program will enable the company to ramp up its battery capacity output to ca. 65 GWh, making the Polish facility one of the largest lithium-ion cell factories in the world.