Freyr Battery US registration approved by shareholders

Freyr Battery is two steps closer to America—and billions of dollars in federal funding—as it gets shareholder approval to leave Europe behind

Norway’s Freyr Battery has received the necessary votes to approve all the proposals put forth during its 15 December extraordinary general meeting, enabling it to complete a previously announced process to change its domicile—the company in which it is officially registered—from Luxembourg to the United States by the end of this year.

“On behalf of the board and management, the Freyr team expresses its gratitude for the support of the shareholders to pass all the proposals at the extraordinary general meeting. With this vote, Freyr will become a US company by the end of 2023, which will enable us to realize the previously announced benefits for shareholders,” Tom Einar Jensen, Freyr’s executive chair, said in a statement issued Monday.

Loan application

Frery’s board believes that moving to the US will increase shareholder value in the long term by providing potential strategic opportunities and benefits.

On the same day as it said the next step towards Giga America would go ahead, Freyr Battery, originally based in the Norwegian town of Mo i Rana, announced that the US Department of Energy (DoE) invited the company to submit the Part II loan application under the DoE Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program for Freyr’s Giga America project in Georgia.

“This is an important next step in Freyr’s journey to fund our Giga America project,” Birger Steen, Freyr’s chief executive officer, said.

“With our redomiciliation to the US now approved by our shareholders, Freyr is uniquely positioned to establish the Company as the US-based industrialization partner of choice for clean battery technology solutions and to access the benefits of the US Inflation Reduction Act utilizing the US-based 24M Technologies SemiSolidTM platform for the manufacture of utility scale energy storage LFP battery systems,” Steen said

Tempted by access to US funding

The DoE loan-application process is a key element of Freyr’s capital-formation strategy to fund construction of the Giga America project. Freyr also continues to engage with potential investors in project-level equity to finance the equity component of anticipated capital expenditures and organizational development associated with the project.

The company said that it would continue to work on advancing the DoE Title 17 process in the coming year.

In November, Freyr announced that it planned to cut the costs at their battery venture in Mo i Rana next year.

The Giga factory had been referred to as potentially one of the largest investments in mainland Norway in recent times. But Freyr  chose to cut Giga Arctic spending and instead relocate to the US, where it could seek funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, a raft of measures passed by Congress in 2022 that includes $369 billion in funding for domestic energy production and to promote clean energy.

“Norway and Europe have yet to offer a competitive response to the US Inflation Reduction Act or similar incentives from Canada. Accordingly, Freyr plans to minimize spending on the project in 2024, secure the asset with the remaining committed capital spending, and continue to work with stakeholders in Norway and Europe to develop a mutually attractive policy solution,” the company said in a statement.

Soon after almost 80 employees received notice that their jobs had been eliminated.

High North News is an independent newspaper published by the High North Center at Nord University in Bodø, Norway.