The EU’s Innovation Fund has given a €100m grant to Norwegian battery maker Freyr for its $1.6bn Giga Arctic project in northern Norway.

Giga Arctic has been under development in the subarctic Norwegian town of Mo i Rana since June last year (see further reading).

It will be a 29GWh facility based on the “24M” modular approach to battery making and will be entirely powered with hydroelectricity.

Freyr chief executive Tom Einar Jensen said the grant would help “bring clean battery products to our customers and partners across Europe”.

Freyr said it intends to install 50GWh of battery cell capacity by 2025 and 200GWh of annual capacity by 2030.

A report by Minviro, a life cycle assessment consultant, found that the annual production at the Giga Arctic facility could allow Freyr’s clients to reduce 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in total, roughly twice as much as Norway emits each year.