- FREYR reaches major milestone by successfully conducting
automated casting trials of electrodes with active electrolyte
slurry at Customer Qualification Plant (“CQP”)
- FREYR expects to make functional battery cells for customer
samples using full automation of CQP in H1 2024, which is the
Company’s top strategic priority
- FREYR expects to submit Part 2 of its Title 17 application
to U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office in Q1
2024
- Year-end 2023 cash and equivalents balance of $275.7 million
exceeds previous guidance of $250 million
FREYR Battery (NYSE: FREY) (“FREYR” or the “Company”), a
developer of clean, next-generation battery cell production
capacity, has provided an update this morning on the Company’s
operational progress at the Customer Qualification Plant (“CQP”) in
Mo i Rana, Norway; and a financial update on FREYR’s cash position
at year-end 2023.
FREYR casts electrodes with active electrolyte slurry
FREYR’s team at the CQP reached a key milestone by producing
automatically casted electrodes with active electrolyte slurry in a
dry room environment starting on January 31, 2024. The introduction
of active electrolyte slurry and the safe commencement of dry room
operations was one of the most significant remaining milestones
before completing the Casting and Unit Cell Assembly commissioning
packages and the anticipated start of automated CQP production on
the 24M Technologies (“24M”) SemiSolidTM platform. Automatic
production of active cathodes and anodes is the next major
milestone in documenting the viability of the SemiSolid platform at
GWh scale. These first casting trials with active electrolyte
slurry mark a significant achievement towards reaching that
milestone.
“I am happy to report that FREYR has surpassed another key
precursor to finalizing commissioning and starting fully automated
production of cells at the CQP,” commented Mike Brose, FREYR’s Head
of the Asset Mo team. “By demonstrating our ability to operate
safely and effectively under dry room conditions in accordance with
our internal timeline, our people and partners are now approaching
landmark achievements on the path to scaling the next generation
24M SemiSolid technology.”
A key distinction between the 24M SemiSolid production platform
and conventional lithium-ion battery manufacturing technology is
the order in which electrolyte is introduced to the process. In the
24M process, electrolyte is added at the start of cell processing,
which eliminates the costly and energy intensive step of solvent
recovery by drying the electrodes. As such, demonstrating the
ability to cast electrodes with live electrolyte is a critical
milestone on the path to eventually producing B sample cells for
customers.
CQP commissioning status and key next steps
Following the successful electrode casting trials with active
electrolyte slurry, FREYR has completed handovers of 363 (94%) of
the 388 discrete production line equipment commissioning and
testing packages at the CQP.
The final technical milestones to commence automated cell
production at the CQP are:
- Successfully conducting production trials on the anode casting
system with solvent slurry before proceeding to casting with active
anode slurry.
- Integrating the casting webs across the cathode, anode, and
merge units of the Casting and Unit Cell Assembly equipment using
the highly complex Multi-Carrier Systems (“MCS”).
“I am excited by the progress our people, in close collaboration
with our partners, have made in recent weeks at the CQP to bring
the 24M SemiSolid technology platform online at an unprecedented
scale,” added Birger Steen, FREYR’s Chief Executive Officer. “The
remaining work on the Casting and Unit Cell Assembly equipment is
highly complex and technically demanding. Nevertheless, I am
encouraged that we are nearing the achievement of FREYR’s top
near-term priority: making functional battery cells for sampling to
our customers using the full automation of the production line
equipment at the CQP in the first half of 2024.”
As previously announced, FREYR has secured conditional offtakes
and one long-term sales agreement totaling approximately 130 GWh of
cumulative capacity. At prices of $70-$80/kWh, these offtake
agreements could equate to revenues of $9 - $10 billion. Providing
B sample cells to customers that are produced with the full
automation of the CQP production line equipment is imperative to
converting conditional offtakes and long-term sales agreements to
binding, financeable commitments.
U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office Update
FREYR’s team continues to process Part 2 of its Title 17
application to the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) Loan Programs
Office. The Company expects to submit the completed Part 2
application to the DOE during Q1 2024.
“FREYR continues to believe that contributing to the development
of a U.S. battery value chain by scaling 24M’s U.S.-based
technology platform is a potential source of long-term competitive
differentiation,” commented Oscar Brown, FREYR’s Chief Financial
Officer. “The deployment of 24M’s next-generation SemiSolid process
at FREYR’s Giga America project is core to that strategy and is
intended to align with the objectives of the Inflation Reduction
Act.”
Year-end 2023 cash balance exceeds previous guidance
FREYR ended 2023 with $275.7 million of cash, cash equivalents,
and restricted cash, or $1.97 per common share1, compared with
previous guidance of $250 million. As previously announced, FREYR
will report full financial results for the quarter and year ended
December 31, 2023, on February 29, 2024.
About FREYR Battery
FREYR Battery is a developer of clean, next-generation battery
cell production capacity. The Company’s mission is to accelerate
the decarbonization of global energy and transportation systems by
producing clean, cost-competitive batteries. FREYR seeks to serve
the primary markets of energy storage systems (“ESS”) and
commercial mobility, and the Company maintains an ambition to serve
the passenger electric vehicles market (“EV”). FREYR is
commissioning and operating its Customer Qualification Plant
(“CQP”) for technology development in Mo I, Rana, Norway, and the
Company is commencing development of the Giga America battery
manufacturing project in Coweta County, Georgia, in the U.S. To
learn more about FREYR, please visit www.freyrbattery.com.
Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking
Statements
All statements, other than statements of present or historical
fact included in this letter, including, without limitation, the
development, construction, timeline, capacity, and other usefulness
of FREYR Battery’s (“FREYR”) production facilities or
gigafactories; FREYR’s ability to complete commissioning of its
Customer Qualification Plant (“CQP”) and to achieve targeted
improvements and the commencement of automated production of
in-spec, customer-testable cells; FREYR’s ability to complete the
technical requirements to stay on track with its anticipated
completion cadence at the CQP; FREYR’s ability to carry out any
successful future trials, implementation or integration of cathode
testing and other technology to reach automated cell production;
and the implementation and effectiveness of FREYR’s overall
business and technology strategies are forward-looking
statements.
These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and
uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ
materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are
outside FREYR’s control and are difficult to predict. Additional
information about factors that could materially affect FREYR is set
forth under the “Risk Factors” section in (i) FREYR’s Registration
Statement on Form S-3 filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (the “SEC”) on September 1, 2022, (ii) FREYR Battery,
Inc.’s Registration Statement on Form S-4 filed with the SEC on
September 8, 2023 and subsequent amendments thereto filed on
October 13, 2023, October 19, 2023, and October 31, 2023, (iii)
FREYR’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February
27, 2023, and (iv) FREYR’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed
with the SEC on May 15, 2023, August 10, 2023 and November 9, 2023
and available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Except as
otherwise required by applicable law, FREYR disclaims any duty to
update any forward-looking statements, all of which are expressly
qualified by the statements in this section, to reflect events or
circumstances after the date of this presentation. Should
underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and
projections could differ materially from those expressed in any
forward-looking statements.
FREYR intends to use its website as a channel of distribution to
disclose information which may be of interest or material to
investors and to communicate with investors and the public. Such
disclosures will be included on FREYR’s website in the ‘Investor
Relations’ sections. FREYR also intends to use certain social media
channels, including, but not limited to, X (former Twitter) and
LinkedIn, as means of communicating with the public and investors
about FREYR, its progress, products, and other matters. While not
all the information that FREYR posts to its digital platforms may
be deemed to be of a material nature, some information may be. As a
result, FREYR encourages investors and others interested to review
the information that it posts and to monitor such portions of
FREYR’s website and social media channels on a regular basis, in
addition to following FREYR’s press releases, SEC filings, and
public conference calls and webcasts. The contents of FREYR’s
website and other social media channels shall not be deemed
incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of
1933, as amended.
1 Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash per common share
is a non-GAAP financial measure calculated by dividing cash, cash
equivalents, and restricted cash by outstanding common shares
(139,705,000 as of December 31, 2023). Management believes that
this alternative measure of cash, cash equivalents, and restricted
cash is helpful for investors to understand the amount of our
Company’s cash balances relative to our outstanding share base.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240207833785/en/
Investor contact: Jeffrey Spittel Head of Investor
Relations jeffrey.spittel@freyrbattery.com Tel: (+1) 409
599-5706
Media contact: Amy Jaick Global Head of Communications
amy.jaick@freyrbattery.com Tel: (+1) 973 713-5585
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