Norwegian battery firm Freyr has canceled plans for a Georgia factory that would have supplied batteries for energy storage.
First reported by the Newman Times-Herald of Newman, Georgia, Freyr confirmed plans to cancel the factory in a letter to the local Coweta County Development Authority dated Jan. 21, and in a Thursday meeting with the authority. Freyr also told the Georgia Department of Community Affairs that it would repay grants and incentives tied to the factory project.
Rendering of proposed Freyr
Announced in November 2022 and branded “Giga America,” the factory would have sat on a 368-acre site in Coweta County, which is on the southwestern edge of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Production was due to be stepped up in phases, starting with a $1.7 billion investment to build out 34 gigawatt-hours of annual production capacity. A second phase was to add more cell production lines and bring total investment to $2.6 billion by 2029.
Rising interest rates, falling battery prices, and a change in leadership at Freyr all contributed to the decision, Jason Peace, the company’s senior vice president of business development, said in an interview with The Newman-Times Herald.
Although oddly omitted in the original report, it’s hard to imagine that policies of the Trump administration pulling back on incentives for renewables wasn’t also a significant factor in this loss of potential Georgia jobs.
Rendering of proposed Freyr
Freyr is also not on totally solid financial footing, the newspaper added. In its third-quarter 2024 financial results, the company reported a net loss of $27.5 million, compared to $9.8 million for the same period in 2023. Peace told authority members that Freyr had been burning cash to get the battery plant built, and was now looking at a nearly-finished solar-panel plant in Texas as an alternative, quicker way to generate revenue.
Rivian, meanwhile, still appears to be moving ahead with plans for an EV assembly plant about an hour from downtown Atlanta. The plant was announced in 2021 and originally scheduled to open in 2024, but Rivian then paused construction. As a result, the opening was first pushed back to 2027, and then 2028, with a $6.6 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy potentially helping get it across the line.