AEW has provided a €42m loan to finance the €2bn development of France’s first gigafactory by Verkor, a French business founded in 2020, which is focused on accelerating the production of low-carbon batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe.
The project will deliver an initial 16GWh EV battery cell manufacturing plant in Dunkirk, France, and is expected to be expanded to 50GWh by 2030. The gigafactory aims to facilitate the transition to electric mobility in Europe and increase the supply of cutting-edge battery cells, which are in growing demand, the manager said.
The project is expected to be operational by 2025, with an initial production capacity to support the fit out of an estimated 300,000 electric vehicles, AEW said.
Battery cell manufacturing sits at the heart of Europe’s carbon transition strategy, with the demand for lithium-ion batteries expected to grow exponentially by 27% annually from 2022 to 2030, according to McKinsey, with 90% of demand expected to come from the automobile industry.
The loan has been provided by one of AEW’s private-debt strategies which aims to finance renewable and energy transition projects with a focus on France. The strategy has financed around €490m worth of projects to date, AEW said.
AEW’s private-debt platform in Europe comprises 30 professionals in Europe and Asia and has €3.1bn of assets under management. The private-debt platform has invested on behalf of a range of corporate, aircraft, infrastructure and real estate debt funds and separate account mandates.
Jonathan Stevens, head of private debt at AEW Europe, said: “Verkor’s Gigafactory will make a significant positive impact to the supply of EV batteries across Europe once operational, and is in line with our strategy of investing in sectors supporting the energy transition in Europe on behalf of our investors. Verkor is an innovator in its field and is capable of creating batteries with better energy density and range, which is highly sought after in the EV industry.”
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