Listen in as Host Bill Nussey talks with Tom Jensen, CEO and Cofounder of the publicly traded Luxembourg and Norway-based FREYR Battery. FREYR is emerging as a leader in clean, high-density battery cell manufacturing. Jensen shares insights into the driving forces that have shaped FREYR to date, the importance of upstream and downstream partnerships, and why the company is committing some $2.6 Billion to the facility envisioned for Coweta County in Georgia. And, since FREYR’s Giga Arctic will be powered by 100% renewable energy, you will want to know what the plans are for powering Giga Americas in Georgia.
Here are a few of the insights from Bill and Tom’s discussion…
“We have three core mantras in FREYR. It’s speed, scale, and sustainability. And everything we do is based on that. If we can’t move faster, if we can’t build bigger, and if we can’t do it sustainably, we just don’t do it.”
“…I really focused on … let’s call them ‘industrial systems’… that can do something that matters. So I want to look for scalable solutions. I want to look for solutions that can be replicated rapidly in many jurisdictions. …I want to work on systems that … have a real impact on not only reducing, not only stopping the increase in CO2 emissions, but … reversing it.”
“So the Inflation Reduction Act that was launched by the administration is the poster child example of how to accelerate the energy transition. It is really forceful, it is really great. And that’s why we are accelerating our deployment in the US. We were originally thinking to sort of move a little bit further in Norway before we replicated … our ambitions elsewhere. But with that incentive program that has been put on the table, and the interest not only from customers, but technology providers, supply chain partners, regulators, and local and state officials, et cetera, is just amazing how the reception has been.“
You can also listen to this podcast and others in our series on these platforms:
Useful Links
- FREYR Battery
- FREYR Battery Announces Plans for U.S. Gigafactory in Georgia | Business Wire
- Qcells to More than Double Production in Georgia, Create 2,500 New Jobs
- Every Politician Wants Green Jobs in This Bitter US Battleground
Transcript
Bill Nussey:
Well, hello and it’s time for a new episode of the Freeing Energy Podcast. I am Bill Nussey, the Founder and Co-host of the Freeing Energy Podcast. And as always, we are so excited and honored to share with you, all of you in our community, the fantastic and inspiring stories of the people who are making the clean energy revolution, and in many ways, the local energy revolution happen.
So a lot of you that have known me for many years know that I absolutely love batteries. In fact, on this podcast, many people have referred to me, somewhat lovingly and sometimes not, as Battery Bill. And it’s true, if you’ve read my book, you know that I see energy storage and particularly energy storage using batteries as a linchpin in making a successful transition to clean energy and also to the local renewable energy future.
So, batteries coupled with solar are being used to power our homes, our workplaces and communities, and these systems are being utilized to support our public grid. But aside from the energy generation and storage, there is another rapidly growing area that demands advanced cost-efficient energy storage in the form of batteries, and you all know exactly what it is. The number one driver of batteries which is electric vehicles. And given that many parts of the world, the sun is setting on internal combustion engines, more and more focus is being placed on creating a globally distributed network of modern efficient battery manufacturing facilities to meet this rapid, rapid increasing demand. So today, China’s the leader in battery manufacturing, but if our guest has anything to say about it, this is going to change.
So I’m excited today to introduce you to Tom Jensen, the CEO and Co-founder of Luxembourg and Norway-based FREYR Battery. FREYR’s a New York Stock Exchange publicly traded company and is using next generation battery cell production technology to position itself as a leader in battery manufacturing. For example, FREYR plans to develop over 40 gigawatt hours of battery cell capacity by 2025 and to position itself as one of Europe’s largest cell suppliers. And today we’re going to talk to him about the exciting plans FREYR has to soon be the leader in the United States, right here actually in Freeing Energy Project’s backyard in Georgia. So Tom, welcome to the Freeing Energy Podcast.
Tom Jensen:
Bill, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and I am overly biased when it comes to batteries and I look forward to talking about it with you.
Bill Nussey:
Well, if it goes well, we’ll refer to you as Battery Tom after this is over too. You probably already get that every day. Right? So just to set the stage, tell us where you’re communicating with us from today.
Tom Jensen:
So I’m calling you from Oslo, Norway, the energy transition capital I guess, if you like. As many of the listeners might know, Norway is by far the leading adopter of electric vehicles on the planet. We started that journey, I would say, some 12, 13 years ago. And today, close to 90% of all, nine zero, not 19, but nine zero percent of all cars sold in Norway are electric. You can’t go for five minutes or five seconds even in Oslo without seeing a whole range of different electric vehicles. And the main reason for why that happened was that the government put in place a very strong incentive scheme where they basically removed all the taxes on electric vehicles. And as you know, Norway’s a high tax country and we have very significant taxes on combustion engine cars, so when you’re actually removing that tax on a Tesla, it becomes on a relative basis the same as a Passat. And that, of course, means that many middle income people are actually buying what in other locations is a luxury brand. So that is part of the reason why they’ve been able to do it.
So Norway has then taken the step through various initiatives and we are the leading one in Norway, biased as we are, in terms of establishing the full battery value chain. So we had the pleasure of hosting the Norwegian government on our Giga Arctic site, which I’ll come back to in a little bit, where they launched their national battery strategy, which was launched earlier this year. So Norway is really stepping up to the plate, wanting to be a core provider of not only batteries, but also the supply chain going into batteries, R&D initiatives, downstream solutions, integrated kind of decarbonization place if you like where batteries is, as you point out, Bill, at the core of that energy transition.
One thing is to remove the tailpipe of a vehicle that clearly decarbonizes transportation, but if you’re producing these batteries with non-renewable energy and if you’re charging these batteries with non-renewable energy, you’re just moving the point of emission to another location. And as we all know, the atmosphere is one atmosphere, it’s not multiple atmospheres. So if you release CO2 in China because you are producing coal-based energy and producing batteries there and/or you’re charging your vehicle in Germany based on coal, it doesn’t really support the energy transition. Therefore, large scale distributed energy solutions in the form of rooftop solar, industrial and commercial solar, plus storage, plus utility grade energy, again supported by balancing capacity through the shape of storage and batteries, is fundamentally important. So from our perspective, we are going to target both of those market [inaudible 00:06:41] with our production systems and I’m happy to be here to talk about how we’re aimed to do that.
Bill Nussey:
Well good. We’re going to go in deep on it, but we always really like to talk about our guest first. So we’re going to just ask, hit you with a couple of questions. We did a little background on your amazing career journey and was surprised, pleasantly surprised to see that you’ve got a big background in regenerative agriculture and reforestation and biofuels. So what sparked that initial interest in that side of sustainability and what led you to transition over to batteries?
Tom Jensen:
Well, so I’m an economist by training unfortunately. And I say that-
Bill Nussey:
Ooh, sorry. Yeah.
Tom Jensen:
Yeah. I say that a little bit deliberately because I’ve found myself for the last 15 years of my life really focusing on scaling disruptive technology or disruptive business models in the sustainability space. And prior to that I was in Norsk Hydro, an industrial giant in Norway who previously actually had three legs to stand on. It was oil and gas on the Norwegian continental shelf and I did a lot of work in the oil and gas space. It’s now today a pure play aluminum company, so I did a lot of work in the aluminum space in Norsk Hydro, and I also did some work in the agricultural space, which was the third arm of Norsk Hydro.
But back in 2008, I decided to, as one of the founders of the agricultural company I used to run, he called me up one day and said it’s about time I do something useful with my life. And I was kind of figuring that I was doing quite okay where I was, but I had to take the jump. In my mid 30s I decided to jump ship and basically become an entrepreneur. And I started that journey in the regenerative agricultural space. I’ve always been preoccupied with sustainability. I’m a little bit of a climate nerd to be honest.
Bill Nussey:
Ooh.
Tom Jensen:
I’m the kind of guy who monitors the CO2 emission databases daily. I am terrified with the pace at which we are increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. I’m also equally terrified that the scientists might be wrong because they tend to underestimate the pace of change in these large, let’s say, global systems. And in addition, this is kind of a consensus driven to a large part kind of industry or scientific community where all the IPCC reports, et cetera, typically are a function of, let’s say consensus and therefore the conclusions are sometimes based on averaging out scenarios.
And as we all know, averaging out scenarios is not the de facto scenario that will happen. So whenever you see reports that scientists are saying that the pace of ice melting on Antarctica was kind of six times higher than they previously assumed, that is quite disturbing. But what is really disturbing to me is what if they’re still six times wrong and that this goes even faster? Because as you know, when a big pile of ice from Antarctica drops out into the ocean, it’s not a gradual increase in sea levels, right? It’s going to go happen overnight.
So anyway, so that’s just one of these climate tipping points that I am sort of nerdy preoccupied with. And the reason for me really going all in on the sustainability front is there is a lack of recognition about the need for really urgent change. And then I really focused on what are the, let’s call it industrial systems that can do something that matters? So I want to look for scalable solutions. I want to look for solutions that can be replicated rapidly in many jurisdictions. I want to work on systems that really have a real impact on not only reduce and not only stopping the increase in CO2 emissions, but reducing it and reversing it. So that’s why I’ve been focused on regenerative agriculture, integrated reforestation programs, and of course, to a large extent, renewable energy systems.
And when a former boss of mine from my previous life in the oil and gas and aluminum industry called me up and said that he had this idea of building gigafactories for clean battery solutions in Norway, it kind of ticked off all the boxes for me because it decarbonized the transportation and it can decarbonize energy systems at the same time. And Norway has a century-long experience in producing renewable energy and exporting renewable energy and building large scale projects in the energy space. And Norway is punching above its weight in terms of taking responsibility for the energy transition. And we want to sort of start here, build our first gigafactory here. We labeled it Giga Arctic fittingly because it’s actually on the Arctic Circle, and then we’re going to replicate that production system also in the United States, as you pointed out initially, and potentially over time in multiple jurisdictions, including facilities upstream and downstream so that we can really create on a lifecycle basis fully decarbonized systems.
Bill Nussey:
That’s a great vision and it’s amazing the progress you guys are making. On behalf of America and reaching out to everyone in Norway, I have to ask you, what do you think of all those Will Ferrell commercials about hating Norway?
Tom Jensen:
Well, I think it’s kind of reverse psychology. I think embedded in that is he kind of loves it, right? So-
Bill Nussey:
Of course
Tom Jensen:
I mean a lot of the immigrants to the US back in the 19th century and earlier were Norwegians. So there is a lot of Norwegian heritage, I guess, around in the US. Norway is a small country. I think we’ve always been admiring the US and I’ve always been saying, by the way, as a representative of FREYR, that when the US wakes up to the energy transition, we need to be there.
Bill Nussey:
I like it.
Tom Jensen:
Because if anything, the US always shows that when it decides to do something, things move. It is the largest market in the world. It is by far the most capital rich market in the world. It has the most brain power. It has the most space. It has the most resolve, when finally you decide. So the Inflation Reduction Act that was launched by the administration is the poster child example of how to accelerate the energy transition. It is really forceful, it is really great, and that’s why we are accelerating our deployment in the US. We were originally thinking to move a little bit further in Norway before we replicated our ambitions elsewhere, but with that incentive program that has been put on the table and the interest not only from customers but technology providers, supply chain partners, regulators, and local and state officials, et cetera, it’s just amazing how the reception has been and we are ready to keep pushing the accelerator to really build clean battery solutions also in the US.
Sam Easterby:
The clean tech revolution is in full swing, especially here on the Freeing Energy Project’s home turf. FREYR is just one example with its plans to spend 2.6 billion on its Giga America’s facility in Georgia between 2023 and 2029. Just within the last month, another big announcement was made here in Georgia. Q CELLS, one of the world’s leading clean energy companies announced a $2.5 billion expansion of its solar panel manufacturing facilities right here in Georgia. Between these two projects alone, that’s an investment of over $5 billion. What makes Georgia so attractive? Relatively low energy cost, the existence of a huge logistics hub with rail and air, and an influential network of technical colleges with deep talent pools. Favorable right to work laws and state and local government support are just a few of the factors that add up to a successful formula for attracting clean tech companies.
And if entrepreneurs and innovators tuning in to Bill’s discussion with FREYR’s Tom Jensen listen closely, you’ll note that the FREYR team is counting on developing and expanding a local supply chain. This approach is part of what is making FREYR’s Giga Arctic Project so successful and will be key to the success of Giga America. In case you want to read more about FREYR, we’ve included some helpful links in the show notes for this episode. And don’t forget to like and subscribe to the Freeing Energy Podcast. Now, let’s get back to Bill and Tom to hear more.
Bill Nussey:
So Tom, before we get there, I would love to understand the origins of the name FREYR, which I’m clearly pronouncing incorrectly, and it’s roots in Nordic mythology. What is the origin of this name? And say it correctly so everyone here in America can learn to pronounce it properly, starting with me.
Tom Jensen:
Yeah, I mean we have a saying in Norway that a good child has many names, so you can pronounce it in different ways. I call it FREYR. So it’s a very sort of Norwegian and Nordic kind of ring to it. Some say FREYR, which is kind of linked [Norwegian 00:16:21] and [Norwegian 00:16:22], which is this Nordic god. In old Norse, it’s actually more the word lord actually. And it’s a widely attested god in the Norse mythology which is associated with fertility, peace, prosperity, virility, sunshine, fair weather, and good harvest. So it’s got a lot of, let’s call it positivity attached to it, giving birth to renewable energy, giving birth to the energy transition if you like, and sort of spearheading momentum in it. So we like to use the Norse mythology and the sort of Nordic, let’s say, heritage to really drive everything we do in terms of what our products will look like, how we will name them, to get that Aurora Borealis feel of what we’re doing and so on and so forth.
Because at the end of the day, people need to feel good about these things, that it’s not only about creating a cost competitive product, but it needs to have, in our opinion, it needs to go beyond that. It needs to be something that people can relate to and affiliate with and so on. So FREYR is a good starting point for that and there’s going to be a lot more interesting names on our products and otherwise coming from FREYR in the next couple of months. So, stay tuned for lots more from Norse mythology, it’s going to be exciting, 2023.
Bill Nussey:
That’s a great lead in. So let’s get a little bit nerdier on your Arctic Project. So you guys have engineered this to be the most capital efficient battery plant in Europe with a 50% lower estimated capital expenditures per gigawatt hour of capacity compared to plants currently in operation or even under construction. You guys expect this to be the most operationally efficient battery plant generating anticipated 200% higher production per plant employed compared to the averages. I mean these aren’t 5% and 10% numbers you’re talking about, these are staggering large changes and will have a profound impact on cost and availability. What do you do and how can you even approach these kind of gains over an otherwise pretty smart industry that’s got a couple of years ahead of you?
Tom Jensen:
So Bill, of course, just to be fair, we haven’t built these facilities yet. We are building them and we will put the first, let’s call it gigawatt hour scale production line in operation in Q1 next year. So it’s coming very soon. And just a little bit of a backdrop and how we ended up with this technology and how ultimately we can claim what we claim. So, when we decided on going into the battery space, we had an 18-month technology selection process. And when we did that process, we were asking ourselves three things, or we were looking for three things I should say.
The first thing we were looking for was a technology that was commercially proven or commercially introduced because we wanted to move fast into the market. We have three core mantras in FREYR, it’s speed, scale, and sustainability and everything we do is based on that. If we can’t move faster, if we can’t build bigger, and if we can’t do it sustainably, we just don’t do it. So that’s very sort of disciplining in terms of how we approach things. And so everyone knows this in FREYR and everyone has that sort of engraved almost in their forehead.
So the first thing we were looking for, commercially introduced technology because we don’t believe in, for us as a company, to do a 10-year technology development program, we just don’t have time for that. So that was criteria number one. Criteria number two was that we were looking for a technology that could offer step change in performance and cost, because at the end of the day, we need to drive down cost and we need to improve performance and these are oftentimes two sides of the same coin. And as you know, producing batteries is a trade-off game. So we needed to look at what technologies out there offered the best balance in these different trade offs with energy density, power density, cycle life, cost, safety, all of those things that are important.
The third thing we were looking for, Bill, was an ability to further scale and further improve over time. So we wanted to have a technology that not only offered these step changes initially, but could really grow with us as batteries penetrate the larger and larger fraction of the global economy. Now when you apply those three filters onto the global technology landscape, there aren’t that many companies left standing. And the one that stood out from the crowd for us was 24M Technologies out of Boston. So that’s a MIT spinoff founded by Yet-Ming Chiang, a material science professor at MIT, who basically set out on a journey with the following, let’s call it, initial hypothesis. Lithium-ion batteries were introduced by Sony Murata back in 1991. So it’s a 30-ish year old industry, it’s reasonably young relative to other industries, but the batteries that were introduced back then were batteries that were built and designed for handheld devices; camcorders, video cameras, Walkmans, these kinds of things.
And then, since everyone wanted a laptop and everyone wanted a handheld device, these battery production facilities were scaled to high heaven and the supply chains were optimized and costs came down dramatically. As we know, just over the last 10 years, costs of batteries have dropped by more than 90%. And since they were introduced in ’91, they’ve probably dropped by 95% to 98%, maybe 99%. So it’s come down significantly. But the batteries themselves are principally the same as were introduced back then. So they’re small, cylindrical batteries or prismatic batteries or pouch-form batteries, but reasonably small and you just put the number of them into the product in question. So Tesla, for instance, has more than 7,000 of these cylindrical batteries in the bottom of their Model S or whatever models they’re having. And then you need to put a lot of modules around it, a lot of packs around it, a lot of safety systems around it, but it’s not really designed for that purpose. It’s just happened to be introduced into that product spectrum because cost came down.
So 24M said, “There’s got to be a better way to produce larger, thicker batteries carrying more energy per volumetric unit of product and more suitable for electric mobility. And then also even more suitable for large scale energy storage,” because today batteries designed for electric mobility are also used in even larger applications in containerized solutions to store sunlight and wind. And again, it’s even less appropriate from a form factor perspective for that purpose. So that’s what 24M did; they redesigned the battery to be much larger and much thicker. So think about fewer repetitive layers of anodes and cathodes in the battery and much larger electrodes surface areas, which allows you to put fewer units of batteries into the final product, which allows you to eliminate a lot of system level costs and so on. So that’s really 24M, it’s a redesign of the battery and not least, a redesign of the production process.
So this is a dramatically simplified production process where instead of filling the electrolyte at the end of the production system, which is what conventional battery solutions do, it’s a semi-automated, fairly long, multiple step production process with semi-manual handover between each step of the production chain. They took the very clever sort of approach of using the electrolyte as the solvent and the binder up front, eliminating-
Bill Nussey:
Oh, interesting.
Tom Jensen:
… the need for those chemicals and having the electrolyte embedded in the active materials from the start, which allows you to remove all of these production steps that are linked to solvent recovery, which is really requiring a lot of heat, a lot of space, which are limiting in terms of speed of production and so on and so forth. So what all of this means is that we reduce the footprint on a per gigawatt hour basis by more than 80%, eight zero, of the facility.
Bill Nussey:
Wow.
Tom Jensen:
That of course means dramatic reduction in steel and construction costs and building and infrastructure and all of that. We also use dramatically lower amounts of energy because we are not using all of this energy to recover the solvents and the binders that you find in conventional technology. That is a dramatic reduction. So more than 60% less energy consumed in the production process itself. Since it’s such a smaller process with fewer production steps, we also need less than half as many people per install capacity and we can probably produce it at much higher speed.
So all of this combined means that we are more capital efficient, so you get more gigawatt hours per million of dollar kind of invested in a particular facility and you get a lot more automated production out of it, which again means that they’re probably, in an average sense, higher, more engineering degrees on average, let’s put it that way, into the facility itself. And therefore we get a lot more out of the facility than what conventional solutions do.
Final thing I’d say is the beauty is that we can use the same raw materials that have already been scaled. So we don’t need to scale a new metal or a new input factor. We can use nickel, manganese, cobalt oxide cathodes, we can use lithium-ion phosphate cathodes, we can use graphite-based anodes, we can use silicone in the anodes, we can use any raw material that has already been introduced in conventional systems. But because of the redesign of the battery itself, and not least the production process, there are dramatic improvements that come from it. The first line at gigawatt our scale size, and that’s what we are now starting up in Q1. It’s something we label the customer qualification plant, that will actually be the first time an actual industrial scale production line of the 20 frame technology at gigawatt power scale will become operational.
And that is happening in Q1 next year and it’s happening in excellent Arctic conditions in Norway, in Mo i Rana. And we’re going to invite a lot of prominent people, including yourselves, to witness this opening sometime in the not so distant future. And we believe that this is going to be a step change for the whole lithium-ion battery industry. And we aim to push these solutions not only into Giga Arctic, which will be eight of these production lines that we’re starting up in Q1 next year, and then we can replicate those eight production lines in modularized approaches elsewhere in the world. So that’s a little bit why we are excited about it and why we think we can make a difference in this industry. And that ties well back, Bill, to my raison d’être, so to speak, in the battery industry. I really wanted to take something to scale quickly that we could replicate many places and so far, knock on wood, so good.
Bill Nussey:
That’s a lot to take in and my jaw is on the table. It’s a fantastic story. It really speaks to two points that I try to make in this book I wrote. One is that sort of new chemistries are overrated. There’s a lot of value for it and the popular media is full of stories about alternative chemistries to lithium ion and hopefully they’ll all work out. But one of the points I make in the book is that taking existing technologies and weaving them together in a new way, sometimes in a way that no one else was thinking about, turning the problem inside out is exactly what you’re doing. You’re taking some of this stuff that’s known and you’re spinning it around in a way that no one else had thought about and you’re creating efficiencies that take the conventional approach and take it to an entirely new level.
And the other thing I’m excited about this, and I reference in the book, is that a day doesn’t go by where someone doesn’t tell me, “Well, we’ve pretty much gotten all the cost out of batteries we’re going to get. Lithium is going to become impossible to find.” And of course I know that’s not the case, and just we’re not going to see batteries get much cheaper and they ask, “Well, how’s it going to get cheaper?” And my point is that I don’t need to know. There are thousands of the smartest people in the world working on this problem and no one thinks that we’re near the end except people that haven’t actually looked at the problem. And you guys are proving this out in a spectacular fashion.
And if I can make it out to your opening, I will be there. That sounds exciting and I would love to see that. One of my favorite things, when I was writing the book, was visiting factories. We visited a lot of solar factories, wind manufacturers, went to China, Europe, and met with one of the founders of Jinko and Solar, so we love factories. [inaudible 00:29:57] towards some of the factories here in Georgia too.
But listen, let’s talk a little bit about your gigafactory approach and how you’re going to be building this in the US. And you mentioned earlier that Inflation Reduction Act was a trigger for you to reconsider and put it here. So two questions, I guess you can answer them together, what specifically, when you analyze the IRA, caused you to say, “This is a tipping point. We’re now going to look serious at the US?” And as a Georgian, I’m actually from New York, but I’m a proud Georgian, lived here for half my life, what is it about this state that, of all the states, particularly in the south that I’m sure were vying to get your business, why did you choose Georgia?
Tom Jensen:
So, I mean we went public on the New York Stock Exchange because we wanted to have access to the largest and most sophisticated capital market in the world. And I mean timing was very strong, so we did it just before the SPAC downturn kind of started to hit the market. So we went public by SPAC acquisition and we were one of the last ones that were successful out of the gate. And we’re quite pleased with the performance so far, even though the markets are quite challenging around us at the moment. We’ve been timing our capital market access, I think quite well. We’ve been able to raise significant amount of capital from the US market and from the US stock exchange I should say.
But that was not the only reason why we wanted to be in the US because as I said earlier, we do believe that there is only a matter of time before the US wakes up to the energy transition and wakes up in a material way, pun intended. And they did with the Inflation Reduction Act, and this has kind of been my point all along. When the US wakes up to this, they’re going to put incentives behind it, they’re going to put brain power behind it, they’re going to put capital behind it like no one else. And what is a little bit interesting to me to witness is that Europe now is in a way “complaining” for the US putting these very strong incentives in place, whereas previously Europe has been complaining because the US hasn’t really sort of leaned into mitigating climate change.
Bill Nussey:
I noticed that.
Tom Jensen:
And what really the Inflation Reduction Act is all about is to accelerate two things. It’s to accelerate mitigation of climate change and it’s to accelerate the reduction of energy costs. Inflation Reduction Act, right? So that’s kind of behind it. And they want to put a lot of money behind scaling renewable energy solutions in the United States, including very strong incentives for battery production and the supply chain going into battery production and not least standalone storage developments coupled with solar or on a standalone basis. So all of this has been granted, if you like, very significant incentives in this $400 billion plus package. And from a battery cell manufacturing point of view, we have very strong incentives on producing battery cells in the US, very strong incentives on producing modules and packs in the US, and there’s also incentives to produce cathode active materials and anode active materials and so on and so forth.
So when the Inflation Reduction Act was announced, we had already started our site selection process, Bill. So we were in the middle of it. We investigated more than 130 sites across 25 states.
Bill Nussey:
Wow. Wow.
Tom Jensen:
And we did it with one of the most sophisticated site selection advisors in the country. And we evaluated probably close to 20 different parameters. But when we ended up in Coweta County, Cow Eater I’m told I’m supposed to pronounce it, right? Cow-eater. So Coweta County in Georgia, there were sort of three main things. Availability of talent, so this is close to large, competent population pools. The infrastructure is very good. That was the second point. And the availability of utilities and renewable energy was a third sort of component. And there are multiple other reasons, including the local and state incentive package and a number of other things, but if I sort of dumb it down, so to speak, to sort of three things, it’s talent, infrastructure, and utilities. And these were… And we’ve been welcomed in an amazing fashion, southern hospitality, southern charm kind of thing.
Bill Nussey:
It’s true. It’s true.
Tom Jensen:
And very competent people and capable people that have taken us in with open arms so we really feel welcome. We secure 368 acres of prime industrial land with an option to go to 500 acres, and that’s probably 20 times plus larger than the acreage we’re building Giga Arctic on. So the ability for us to grow, not only with multiple facilities, but also go upstream and downstream is part of the reason why we have taken that land, we’ve acquired it, we control it, and now we’re sort of neck deep into the next phase, defining the specific concept, which will be in large part a replica of what we’re building in Norway, but adapted to the environment and such, et cetera.
And then we are looking into what renewable energy solution should we have? Should we build a dedicated solar plus storage facility next to our facility to ensure that we have a dedicated energy supply? Or do we sort of enter into a long-term PPA with a utility in the area based on renewable energy? And it’s probably going to be a combination, but we’re going to stay true to our three principles, Bill. It’s sustainability, speed, and scale, and coming to the US, and coming to a theater near you, it’s happening as we speak.
Bill Nussey:
Wow, that’s a fantastic story, Tom. To go back to something you said a minute ago about the IRA, I think one of the untold benefits and one of the reasons it got done at all in a divisive political environment, and one of the reasons it will probably survive the coming divisive political environments, is that at its core, it’s also about jobs and that is something that all political parties, they find so many things to fight over, but jobs is something they tend to agree on, even when they try to fight over it. And I think that the IRA is going to create a lot of jobs and there’s a lot of very specific parts there that create jobs in low-income areas in the country, union jobs, and we can all debate what’s good and bad about all that, but the bottom line is that it is about jobs.
And I think that’s one of the benefits of Georgia is that, again, you’ve got all kinds of disagreements about what the state should and shouldn’t do and who should do what, but everybody here loves jobs and the state seems to have fallen in love with clean energy jobs and you guys are one of the very best examples of an organization making a decision. So we do not work for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce by any stretch, but we are proud to live here and excited that you guys are building your factory here.
And by the way, I would be remiss not to throw in, because this podcast is all about local energy, that when you’re deciding between a PPA and local solar, the listeners of our podcast are all hands up in the air for local solar and that’s really the raison d’être for Freeing Energy. So I just thought I’d throw that in there for you. And in fact, I think you’re probably one of the very few guests that isn’t a hardcore local energy fanatic, but we figured we had you for a few minutes, we might start to convert you, but we’re just so excited about the battery story and the scale at which we’re operating that we were adamant, many of our listeners were excited to have you on the show. I’m so glad that you have.
So a couple quick questions just to wrap up. You’re going to be making all these new batteries in the Arctic and in America here. Do you know the off takers already? Are they going to be in cars? Are they going to be grid scale? Residential scale? Where do you know, what are your plans today for the off-takers?
Tom Jensen:
So we already have signed a 38 gigawatt hour off-take agreement with Nidec Corporation, a Japanese conglomerate that is the world leader in electric engines, but also one of the world leaders in ESS applications. So they have 130 projects in Europe and the US and other places in the world. So we are building, we’ve announced a joint venture with them where we’re building modules and packs and containerized DSS solutions, DC blocks kind of products next to our Giga Arctic facility. And we have a bunch of other initial off-take agreements announced with a broad variety of other energy storage customers. We are in the closing stages of moving into e-mobility. So first you will typically see us going into buses, trucks, delivery vans, and the like. And of course most of the large OEMs, in particular the European ones, we’re also in deep discussions with for finding solutions for them.
But we kind of took it the other way around. We believe that the energy storage market or the ESS market is going to be as big from a battery point of view as the EV market. And it’s kind of missed a little bit on many, but it’s kind of obvious to us that when you introduce, you need to triple electricity production to decarbonize society. And that means 20 folding installed solar and wind capacity. And we need to do that in the next 20 years if you’re going to be reasonably on track to mitigate climate change. And if that is true, we need to probably 200 to 400 fold installed energy storage capacity. And that’s why we started down that path with LFP cathode material. And then we’re sort of moving the other way from ESS to electric vehicles as opposed to the other way around. And that is an interesting business model that is generating a lot of traction and it’s kind of an “easier”, not easy, but easier route to market and that’s why we’re doing it. So you should expect significant triple digit gigawatt hour off-take agreements coming out of FREYR.
Having said that, we enter into long-term off-take agreements with partners because we want to attract competitive project finance, but over time we believe this market is going to be significantly short, at least for the coming decade or two because it’s just not easy to build out battery capacity and we are going to be short of it. So as long as we’re able to build facilities, we will be able to sell these batteries any day of the week and twice on Sunday for the next 20 years. So this is the-
Bill Nussey:
I completely agree.
Tom Jensen:
… biggest secular shift in human history. The energy transition is upon us. It needs to happen over the next couple of decades and we are in the right markets at the right time. And anyone who wants to join us on that journey, be it are you interested in a job or are you interested to buy batteries or are you interested to supply stuff to us or work with us in any way, we’re open for business and as I said, we are, in a theater near you.
Bill Nussey:
I love it. Well, Tom, this is fantastic and because we’re kind of out of time, I wanted to just bring the plane in for landing as we say and wrap up with what we do with all of our guests we’re privileged to speak with, the four lightning round questions. So I’m just going to hit you with these four questions, quick answers, whatever comes to mind, and here we go. First lightning round question, what excites you most about being in the clean energy business?
Tom Jensen:
The ability to mitigate climate change.
Bill Nussey:
All right, if you could wave a magic wand and change just a single thing right now, what would it be?
Tom Jensen:
Replicate the Inflation Reduction Act in Europe.
Bill Nussey:
I like that. All right. What do you think will be the single most important change in how we generate, store, and distribute electricity in the next five years?
Tom Jensen:
Recognition that distributed rooftop solar, domestic and commercial and industrial, will become the main energy providing source globally.
Bill Nussey:
Oh my gosh. The right answer is batteries, but that’s the second-best answer. Holy cow, Tom, you win the prize of the year. This is the best answer we’ve heard all year. We’re going to quote you on that. Thank you. And final answer, I’m sure in this role you have, you get asked by a lot of people who do want to get into the industry, into the battery industry, into the clean energy industry, into this, the climate industry. When someone asks, how do I help make this transition faster? What can I do personally to get involved? What do you tell them?
Tom Jensen:
You have to know why you want to be there. That’s what I tell everyone in FREYR. Why are you here? As long as you know why you’re here, then you know what to tell yourself when you get up in the morning. I am here because I’m deeply worried about climate change and I want to make the world a better place for my children. That’s why I’m here. That is good enough for me every morning when I’m tired and I need to double down on anything. The most important thing that anyone can do is to know the reason why they’re doing what they’re doing. It doesn’t need to be the same reason as I have, but needs to be a reason and that reason needs to be known by you.
Bill Nussey:
Well, thank you. Thank you. And I think one of the reasons I do all this, because Sam and I do this at our own cost and we don’t take sponsors or advertisers, the audience has grown tremendously. The reason we do this is that there are people like yourself and your team doing work that doesn’t get the mainstream press, doesn’t show up exactly in some kind of statistic, but the work that you’re doing is literally changing the world and you have a steely-eyed, competent, highly thoughtful approach to how to do it, it makes us believers, it gets us excited, and it gives us a sense of optimism that the future is something we can actually be hopeful about. And you and your team are a material part of getting us there. So thank you so much for all the work that you and your team are doing, to all your investors, and we can’t wait to see you, maybe in Norway, but definitely in Georgia. Great work. Thank you so much for your time today, Tom.
Tom Jensen:
Thanks, Bill. Pleasure to be here. Let me know when I can come back.
One Response
Mr Jensen’s answer to your final question is the CORRECT answer. A battery simply makes that solar energy available to power your light that evening. So, second-best, but only by a nose.
Great interview. Thanks!