British gigafactory firm Britishvolt enters administration
Wed 18 January 2023
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UK battery manufacturing start-up Britishvolt has entered administration after final efforts to secure emergency funding failed. Founded in 2019, the company had raised hopes that it would help the UK to develop key supply chain infrastructure to support the domestic electric vehicle industry. The firm had secured investment from FTSE 100 companies Glencore and Ashtead and had also received a £100m funding pledge from the UK Government.
Most of the firm's 300 staff have been made redundant.
Britishvolt had planned to build a £3.8bn battery plant in Blyth, north-east England. The company had developed in-house battery technology to prototype stage.
The Blyth location has been considered as an ideal location for a battery factory because of its size, transport links and access to clean energy. The site still appears likely to be developed as a battery factory as there are covenants on the land that require it to be used for that purpose. The company's administrator, EY, has shortlisted several bidders, including Australian battery start-up Recharge Industries and a group of current shareholders who had made a late attempt to stop the company falling into administration. Britishvolt's founder is also reported to have made a bid for the company.
EY said that the company had arrived at its current situation as there was "insufficient equity investment for both the ongoing research it was undertaking and the development of its sites in the Midlands and the North East of England".
There is now only one EV battery plant under construction in the UK - a plant in Sunderland being built by Chinese company Envision. However, WAE Technologies, owned by Australian iron ore mining giant Fortescue, has said it has plans to build a new EV battery factory in Oxfordshire which could create 300 new jobs.
A report by Sky News said Fortescue founder and CEO Andrew Forrest says the plant will be in operation as soon as April, and could have a capacity of 400MWh per year.
The new plant, in Kidlington differs to that of the one planned by Britishvolt in that it will focus on the construction of power cells for heavy goods vehicles such as mining trucks.
Image courtesy Britishvolt
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