Serbia will have Europe’s first Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) factory. The Serbian battery manufacturer ElevenEs secured the investment from EIT InnoEnergy, a sustainable energy innovations supporter, to build a 100 per cent renewable energy-powered LFP battery factory in Subotica. The construction is scheduled to start in 2024.
With an initial capacity of 8 gigawatts-hour (GWh), the plant will double its output and expand to 16 GWh to produce enough batteries to equip more than 300,000 electric vehicles each year. The facility will be constructed close to Serbia’s Jadar Valley, Europe’s largest lithium deposit.
The company has been conducting research and development (R&D) into lithium-ion batteries since October 2019. It opened an advanced R&D centre with an international team of engineers and scientists to develop the battery technology for electric passenger cars, buses, trucks, industrial vehicles and energy storage systems in Subotica.
Nemanja Mikać, founder and CEO of ElevenEs said that “LFP cells last more than twice as long as competing chemistries” and added that “they can be recharged up to 6,000 times”, faster and cost significantly less. He underscored that LFP “is the most popular choice in China today, which is still the global leader in battery technology”.
“LFP batteries are the next big thing on the battery landscape”, underlined Jakub Miler, CEO at EIT InnoEnergy Central Europe. “Although nickel-based batteries outperform LFP on energy density and are likely to remain the best option for performance cars, LFP is far better in terms of cost, safety and lifetime, making it a perfect choice for industrial, ESS and city EV (shorter range) applications.”
By 2030, Europe will need 14 times more batteries than it produces today. This is due to the growth of electric mobility and the energy storage market, which requires batteries to stabilise energy systems, especially in light of the growing share of renewable energy.
