Australian startup Recharge Industries has made a bid to rescue collapsed Britishvolt, potentially throwing a lifeline to the North East's electric battery gigafactory plans.
The founder of the Victoria based business, David Collard, is reported to be visiting the Blyth site this week, as well as talking to Government officials, before submitting a formal bid for the company, which had been hoping to create more than 3,000 North East jobs through its £3.8bn plant.
Britishvolt's ambitions to build a plant capable of producing hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle batteries every year came to an end last Tuesday, when EY was appointed as administrator. EY said the firm had failed to raise sufficient funds to fuel plans for the development in the North East and its research and development division.
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The company's plans to create a battery gigafactory were hailed by then Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng last January when he announced Government backing that opened the door to £1.7bn in support from private finance groups.
But the company’s troubles came to the fore in the summer when work on the Cambois site halted. The company initially said that work would restart this year, but its financial troubles became apparent when it was unable to access the £100m Government funding. Months later, a request to draw down £30m of the funds was refused, with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy saying money would only be released once certain milestones on investment and orders were met.
EY said that of Britishvolt’s 232 employees, around 206 had been made redundant with immediate effect. The remaining 26 staff are being kept on to assist with the sale of the company’s business and its assets and the wind-down of the business. Britishvolt hoped to become a focal part of the UK’s electric vehicle ecosystem, cutting manufacturers’ reliance on imports from overseas, including China.
Recharge Industries is reported to have made a bid for the site yesterday with its founder David Collard telling the Financial Times that he intends to tour the site at Cambois this week and meet Government officials before making a formal offer. The company is reported to be up against as many as 12 other interested bidders, however, including Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors and DeaLab, the London-based financial group whose bid before Britishvolt’s collapse was rejected by shareholders.
It is widely believed that the Cambois site – once the location of coal fired, Blyth Power Station – remains an outstanding location for a battery manufacturing plant.
The site remains largely untouched following the completion of demolition works in 2003 and, having previously been a major industrial location, the site has strong road, rail and maritime links, making the transport of materials, in and out of the site ,easy and without the need for a major new infrastructure development.
Ryan Maughan, chair of the North East Automotive Alliance EV North Group, said: “Along with a strong skill base to call upon, the legacy of that power station is what made this a perfect site for a large-scale battery manufacturing plant. The power station’s grid connections remained and provided an excellent way to quickly get the required level of electrical power for large scale battery manufacture.
“In addition, this electrical connectivity was already being used by the North Sea Link, a 1400-megawatt, 720 kilometre, subsea interconnector, linking the electricity systems of the UK and Norway and providing access to Norwegian renewable electricity.
“Despite the problems faced by Britishvolt, the Cambois site remains one of the best locations to establish a battery manufacturing plant in the country. The AESC Envision site in Washington, is now the only new large scale battery plant under construction in the UK and experts agree that there will be a need for up to 8 to 10 such plants in the future to make battery cells for electric cars, trucks, planes, grid storage and all kinds of other applications.”
Paul Butler, chief executive of the North East Automotive Alliance, added: “We are the largest automotive cluster in the UK and remain the powerhouse for UK electrification. We remain committed to supporting our members and the sector and we are ready to assist new inward investors who can take the Cambois site forward.”
A spokeswoman for administrators EY declined to comment.
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