Giga-scale European Li-ion manufacture

Energy Futures Lab and the Dyson School of Design Engineering present a lecture from Marcus Ulmefors a Data Scientist focussed on battery modeling at Northvolt. Does Europe need a homegrown Li-ion Gigafactory? We believe it does. With the dramatic increase of renewable energy deployment and electric vehicle production, the timing is perfect for Giga-scale Li-ion manufacture in Europe. In fact, with the current global outlook, we cannot move quickly enough. This talk will explain the rationale behind Northvolt (founded 2016), its approach on Li-ion technology, sustainable manufacture, digitalization, and recycling. During fall 2019, Northvolt started construction of its first factory with final potential manufacture capacity of 40 GWh/year in Skellefteå, Sweden. In parallel, a joint venture with Volkswagen has been announced to build a second factory in Germany. Marcus Ulmefors graduated from Imperial College (MEng in Mechanical Engineering) in 2012 and now works with Data Science and Battery Modeling at Northvolt in Stockholm. Prior to this role, the most recent activity was large fleet Li-ion battery analysis of connected off-grid Solar Home Systems in East Africa. Marcus combines engineering experience of energy system technologies (batteries, solar, wind, ocean waves, nuclear fission) with professional experience in data science, machine learning and software development in applying both theoretical and data-driven methods to the study of Li-ion behaviour.