First gigafactory for pure solid-state batteries in Switzerland

The first Gigafactory for pure solid-state batteries has been established in Switzerland. Production will be carried out by battery research start-up Swiss Clean Battery (SCB) AG.

Solid-state batteries are reported to be extremely durable and at least 50% better, regarding environmental performance, than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

They are also incombustible and therefore safe to use, contain no critical raw materials such as cobalt, and are resistant to deep discharge and fast charging.

The announcement sees Switzerland become the first country to go into series production with the new technology.

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Battery production

With production scaling from 1.2GWh to 7.6GWH, SCB AG will serve both the Swiss domestic and international markets with sustainable battery storage from 2024.

All machines and chemicals will be sourced regionally from Switzerland and Germany. Short distances, minimised logistics costs and security of supply are reported as the main guiding goals.

In the first production phase of 1.2 GWh, SCB AG is planning sales of CHF318 million ($339.9 million).

For this, CHF246 million ($262 million) investment volume in the machinery is planned.

In this first stage, SCB AG employs 181 people. A production area of 20,000 m2 is planned to be built to manufacture 7.2 million battery cells per year.

In addition to debt financing of the production facility, an initial public offering (IPO) is targeted for October 2022 on the Zurich Stock Exchange.

In the final phase, SCB AG is to produce 7.6GWH, with an investment sum of CHF775 million ($828.3 million) and a turnover of over CHF2 billion ($2.1 billion).

Approximately 100,000 m2 of production area will be built for this purpose. At this stage of expansion, SCB AG will produce nearly 48 million battery cells per year with 1061 employees.