SectorsBatteries and solarNorthvolt Drei

Northvolt Drei

Northvolt Drei Project GmbH · Heide · DE · Batteries and solar · supply security

Paused15 GWh per year

Northvolt Drei is Northvolt Drei Project GmbH's batteries and solar project at Heide, Germany.

Why it matters

Work has stopped, and the reason is in its history below.

Where Northvolt Drei is

Northvolt Drei is at Heide gigafactory. Also in frame: 1 site using the same technology.

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filled: operating, commissioning or under constructionhollow: announced, funded, or pausedringed: this project

54.1953° N 9.0547° EHeide gigafactory

as of 2026-07-22

Status

  1. Announced
  2. Funded
  3. FID taken
  4. In construction2024-03-25
  5. Operating
  6. Paused2024-11-21
  • 2024-03-25In constructionNorthvolt's own release: 'the start of construction of battery gigafactory Northvolt Drei in Heide' — the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor and the Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein starting piling machinery on the site outside Heide, in Dithmarschen. GROUND WORKS AND NO BUILDING: what followed was piling, earthworks and utilities, and the factory itself was never raised. The Lyten memorandum of 2026 describes the site as having 'groundwork and utilities in place', which is the same fact from the other end.source
  • 2024-11-21PausedNorthvolt AB and subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 reorganisation in the United States, with about $245 million of new financing and a stated intention that operations continue. Heide stopped: the German project company was left to the restructuring, and no work has been recorded on the site since. The Swedish bankruptcy followed on 12 March 2025 and is on the Northvolt Ett row.source
  • 2026-04-10PausedA FIRST PARTIAL PERMIT UNDER THE BImSchG, and the status does not move: a permit is permission to build, not building. The Landesamt für Umwelt is the licensing authority and its procedure G10/2023/091 — 'Neubau einer Anlage zur Herstellung von Lithium-Ionen-Akkumulatoren (Batteriezellenfertigungsanlage Northvolt DREI)' — names the applicant as Northvolt Drei Project GmbH and the site as Blauer Lappen 2, Lohe-Rickelshof, Gemarkung Rickelshof, Flur 1, with its parcels listed; the portal shows public participation running 20 April to 4 June 2026. THE GRANT ITSELF IS REPORTED AND NOT PUBLISHED WHERE THIS PIPELINE CAN READ IT: trade press dated the first partial permit 10 April 2026, alongside a €153 million repayment on the convertible bond to the federal and state governments, and the LfU's own press index carries no release for it. The date is the reported one and the source is the authority's file on the procedure.source
  • 2026-07-01PausedLyten signed an exclusive memorandum of understanding with KfW, Northvolt Drei Project GmbH and its shareholder LG Batterie GmbH to progress an acquisition of the assets. The 110-hectare site has groundwork and utilities in place, with 15 GWh under construction and plans to scale beyond 30 GWh. A memorandum is not a completed sale, so the owner is unchanged here and no ownership event is recorded. The state's own release of the same week says the same thing from the other side: the parties will sign an exclusive letter of intent, it is 'rechtlich noch unverbindlich', and binding contracts are to be drafted and signed at a later 'closing'. REPORTED AND NOT RECORDED AS A FACT: Lyten's chief executive is said to have told the state government in March 2026 that construction would start in 2027 and production in 2028. No state or company page carrying that timetable could be read here — the ministry's and the Staatskanzlei's own releases do not state it, the trade reports of it are behind a consent wall or a 403 — so it is named as reported and no date on this row rests on it.source

Technology and measures

  • Gigafactory-scale cell manufacturingcommercialElectrode coating, cell assembly and formation run at gigawatt-hour scale on one site. It is the process node rather than a chemistry: the same lines make several chemistries, and what decides whether Europe has cells is whether the lines exist and yield, not which cathode runs through them.

Funding

  • €902 mGerman federal and Schleswig-Holstein aidapprovedNo register measure is the legal basis. The aid was approved under the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework, which is a state aid instrument and not a provision of any act this platform holds.“Commission approves €902 million German State aid measure to support Northvolt in the construction of an electric vehicle battery production plant to foster the transition to a net-zero economy”source

Sources