Slovak startup InoBat has chosen a location for its battery manufacturing and recycling gigafactory. This decision follows preliminary agreements signed with the Serbian government.
InoBat has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Serbian Ministry of Finance and the municipality of Ćuprija, a city in the center of the country, for the construction of its second gigafactory, the company said.
“We are happy to announce that Ćuprija will be the site of our Giga Factory in Serbia and our recycling project named Lion, which has been under development for two years with the International Finance Corporation (IFC),” said InoBat.
According to the company, Lion will be its second gigafactory in Central and Eastern Europe. InoBat is developing the Voderady research and development pilot line and the mini-giga factory in Slovakia.
One of InoBat’s shareholders is Rio Tinto
InoBat said the Serbian government was ready to offer an incentive package of 419 million euros for the Lion project. The facility will assemble energy storage solutions (ESS), electric vehicle (EV) batteries and recycling batteries, InoBat revealed and pledged to align activities with its value chain development platform comC2C circular.
In November 2022, InoBat has signed preliminary agreements with the government of Serbia on the construction of a gigafactory.
One of InoBat’s investors is Rio Tinto, which is developing a lithium extraction and processing project in the country. Following massive protests across Serbia and other forms of public pressure, the the government decided to stop it. However, there are indications that the project could be revivedso the InoBat deal makes it even more likely.
InoBat will start cooperation with China-based Minth Group in Serbia
Marian Bocek, CEO of InoBat, said they chose Ćuprija because of its welcoming and enthusiastic local community and its active and proactive municipal government.
“Another major advantage is the possibility of co-developing our own smart grid of distributed energy and electricity from renewable sources for our own consumption,” he added.
According to board member and CDO Tara Lindstedt, Project Lion has progressed well. She noted that InoBat had earlier this year signed a memorandum of understanding with Minth Group on collaboration across the battery value chain in Europe, starting with Serbia. According to her, this would focus on supplying green energy to the Slovak company’s factories, materials and recycling.
Jimmy Wong: Minth Group has eight locations in the country
“Our decision to locate InoBat’s second CEE facility in Serbia was partly influenced by Minth’s long and positive experience there,” Lindstedt said.
Jimmy Wong, managing director for Europe at Minth Group, said the China-based company has eight sites in the Balkan country.
“We are happy to support InoBat’s investment in Serbia, which creates jobs in the new decarbonized circular economy,” said Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić.
Maria Paulina Mogollon, InoBat Head of Upstream and Consulting for Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Services (MAS) in Europe and Latin America, expressed the belief that Project Lion would put Serbia on the map of European circular and low-carbon renewable energy storage solutions and electric vehicle battery value chains.
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