ElevenEs completes Europe’s first LFP battery cell factory

Battery storage startup ElevenEs said its manufacturing facility in Serbia is fully operational. It is the first lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell factory in Europe, it added.

In Serbia’s northernmost city of Subotica, a project is underway for a battery gigafactory with an annual capacity of 8 GWh, set for launch in 2026, while 40 GWh is planned to be added by end-2027. The developer, ElevenEs, has just finished the cell manufacturing facility, as scheduled. It is the first application of the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology in Europe, it stressed.

The startup said its product, EDGE, is also the first cobalt and nickel-free battery cell on the continent and added the energy consumed in the process is 100% from renewable sources – a combination of hydro, wind and solar power.

The energy used in the process is 100% renewable

Earlier it revealed the initial capacity of the manufacturing facility would be 300 MWh. The production site specializes in producing high-quality LFP prismatic cells and sends them to customers for sample A and B testing including for electric cars, buses, trucks and energy storage systems, according to ElevenEs.

LFP is forecasted to become the number one battery cell chemistry by the end of the decade, the company said and added that it offers greater safety, lower cost and increased sustainability.

The Serbian startup counts on LFP to become the main battery cell chemistry by the end of the decade

“LFP battery cells also last three times as long as the most common competing technologies, making them the most cost-efficient battery solution on the market. Along with the overall benefits of LFP chemistry, ElevenEs’s EDGE battery cells offer higher energy density on a pack-level compared to other LFP cell designs,” the statement reads.

Next year the facility will expand to a megafactory of 500 MWh in annual capacity “focusing, but not limited to, C and D samples,” according to ElevenEs.

Of note, Turkish company Kontrolmatik Technologies (Kontrolmatik Teknoloji Enerji ve Mühendislik) is building an LFP battery plant in Ankara, scheduled for the start of commercial production by the end of June.

Freyr is already making sample LFP battery cells in Norway. The company said it would start production at its future gigafactory next year.

In November, InoBat from Slovakia signed preliminary agreements with the Government of Serbia on the construction of a gigafactory that would manufacture and recycle batteries.