Billionaire Lars Helge Helvig is going to build a giant battery factory – wants to raise billions

Stavanger man Lars Helge Helvig (62) is one of the great entrepreneurs in Norwegian wind power, and probably the private individual who has earned the most in the industry. The oil engineer invests through the “green” investment company Valinor, which in 2021 made a profit of NOK 450 million after selling off the charging company Zaptec.

Last year Helvig secured a large industrial park in Orkland municipality in Trøndelag, without it being clear what he was going to use it for. The only hint was that Helvig opted out of his home county of Rogaland – where he now earns good money from wind power through the company Norsk Vind Energi – because the electricity prices were too high.

Now Helvig reveals that the plan is to build a huge battery factory.

– Battery production on a large scale is absolutely essential if we are to succeed with electrification and the green shift, says Lars Helge Helvig.

Retrieves former Morrow boss

The venture has been named Elinor Batteries and will be led by Terje Andersen, who left as CEO of Bjørn Rune Gjelsten’s battery company Morrow Batteries last summer.

The ambition is to build three to four factory modules with a capacity of a total of 40 gigawatt-hours of battery annually. This corresponds to a capacity of up to 800,000 electric car batteries, but it is not electric cars that Valinor is betting on. Instead, they will produce batteries for stationary storage of electricity.

The batteries must be able to be used for power storage in everything from homes and commercial buildings to charging stations and industry.

– Is today’s battery technology good enough, Helvig?

– We have seen a very exciting development on the technology side in wind power and solar power, where costs have fallen sharply. We also see this in part with batteries. We believe it will continue, but the technology will not improve without us taking the existing technology and making it better. We cannot sit on the fence and wait for someone else to do it for us.

Managing director Andersen believes that it is urgent to get started.

– The electrification of society means that the need for batteries worldwide increases with each passing day. That the EU should make itself less dependent on batteries produced in Asia also opens up an even bigger market in Europe, he says.

Will collect ten billion this year

The first construction phase, which is scheduled to begin in 2024 and be completed in 2026, requires investments of approximately NOK ten billion.

The development will take place over three construction stages until 2030, with total investments of around NOK 30 billion when the factory is scaled up. The hope is that the factory will provide around 2,500 jobs.

Valinor has financed the project’s development phase with a two-digit million sum. During 2023, a capital acquisition will be carried out, which will take place in stages. The financing will be a combination of private investors at home and abroad, the owners’ investment capital and government grants.

Valinor will participate in the capital raising, but Helvig is unsure with how much.

– It is more about the ability than the will, because the amounts needed are completely beyond our reach, he says.

– Doesn’t it show unsustainable investments when the state subsidizes?

– No not at all. The state has previously financed other industries in the early phase, then scaled it down to zero, which the state has made a lot of money from. In oil, the state still relieves a lot of risk, says Helvig.

– How much do you hope the state will contribute?

– I haven’t speculated much on that yet, but we see that the state is positive about this industry. This will create many new jobs, so we think and assume that we will get roughly the same amount as other battery projects.

Waves away Spetalen criticism

Among other things, the state has supported the battery company Freyr with NOK four billion in guarantees. The other two major battery ventures, Morrow Batteries and Beyonder, received a total of NOK 325 million in loans and grants from Innovation Norway in October.

Helvig describes Elinor Batteries as “a clear answer” to the government’s new battery strategy, which was launched in the summer of 2022. It states that Norway has unique advantages and opportunities to succeed in producing “the world’s most environmentally friendly batteries”.

Not everyone agrees. Investor Øystein Stray Spetalen is one of the critical voices that has come out strongly against the government’s strategy.

– It is something we have zero expertise in. There is a 99.9 percent chance that this will go completely wrong. We don’t know anything about it and will buy parts from here and there, Spetalen said at an event organized by Finansavisen.

– It’s like going to Ethiopia and saying that they should stop running 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, and that they should rather invest in cross-country skiing, Spetalen added.

Both Spetalen and Helvig are petroleum engineers, but they see the world in different ways.

– I don’t let the criticism from Spetalen get to me. It is true that Asia has more experience in battery production than we do, but we also knew nothing about oil. There, we have worked our way up to become a leading nation, so I think that Norway can assert itself well in the long term as we acquire knowledge, says Helvig.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using links, which lead directly to our pages. Copying or other forms of use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For further terms see here.