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©Reuters. Volkswagen will operate the first battery gigafactory in Spain in 2026
Sagunto (Valencia), May 5 (.).- Volkswagen Group (ETR:) will accelerate the construction of the first large-scale battery factory in Spain, the Sagunto battery gigafactory (Valencia), and it will be operational in 2026, according to The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, guaranteed this Thursday.
In the presentation of the Volkswagen Group gigafactory project, its president, Herbert Diess, assured that the group and Seat, together with more than 60 companies, are “on the starting line” to transform the automobile industry “hand in hand with elbow” with the Spanish Government.
Sánchez stressed that the factory, the first for battery and cell assembly in the country, is an activity with high added value and is part of the ecosystem that will be generated along with the development of energy storage, with links to universities, private companies of all sizes and research centers.
The President of the Government has assured that no other country will be able to carry out a deployment of the electric vehicle “as comprehensive” as the one that Spain is going to undertake in the coming years from the electric battery gigafactory.
It has also shown its commitment to the integration of all the elements of the electric vehicle value chain in Spain, which will inspire confidence in the main players in the sector, and has claimed that they have accompanied the transition of this “key” sector , which represents 8% of GDP and employs almost 2 million Spaniards.
He has assured that establishing the electric vehicle value chain in Spain will be “a representative flag” of what can be achieved from public-private collaboration and applying European recovery funds, which will allow 13,000 million euros to be allocated to sustainable mobility .
For the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Ximo Puig, this day will change the lives of Valencians and future generations will continue to reap the fruits of an operation that has ensured “the necessary facilities”, legal certainty, institutional stability and social agreement, and with which the revolution for sustainable mobility in Spain that the Valencian Community wants to co-lead begins.
Spain had “a certain moral debt” with Sagunto after the reconversion that today “we can pay off”, Puig said, to recall that a century ago the blast furnace began to be built in “another revolution, that of metal and “, compared to the current, innovative development and awareness of respect for the environment.
Diess has said that Volkswagen, Seat and the Spanish Government want to make the country a European operations center or “hub” for electric mobility and the group is prepared to mobilize 10,000 million euros, a historic investment and the largest industrial investment to be made in the history of Spain.
With this, he was referring to the investment of the project presented to the electric vehicle Perte, which amounts to 10,000 million euros, 3,000 more than initially announced, due to the part contributed by the 62 companies allied with the Volkswagen Group and Seat in the draft.
Of this total, 3,000 million will go to the battery gigafactory and another 3,000 to the electrification of the factories of the German consortium in Martorell (Barcelona) and Navarra.
Diess has said of Perte, which the group presented this Wednesday, that it is “a historic opportunity” and serves as a model for all of Spain to know how traditional industries can be transformed, and will help the company to be in 2050, at the latest, a CO2 neutral company with solar and wind energy.
In addition to the electrification of the second largest automobile producer in Europe with the battery factory and the production of electric cars in the Martorell and Pamplona plants, it will create a complete ecosystem of suppliers that encompasses everything from lithium extraction in mines to assembly of batteries.
The Sagunto gigafactory is the third to be built in the European Union, after those in Germany and Sweden, to which three other plants will be added by 2030. This plant will supply the factories in Martorell and Pamplona, which will form part of the The group’s production “hub” for compact electric cars from Volkswagen, Cupra and Skoda.
“We are making good progress, in the first quarter we have increased the delivery of electric vehicles by 65% to 100,000 units,” said Diess.
The Sagunto battery gigafactory will receive an investment of 3,000 million euros, will create 3,000 jobs, will be managed by Power Co, a Volkswagen company, and will occupy 200 hectares of the Parc Sagunt II industrial park.
Between 20 and 30% of its energy needs will be received from a 240-hectare solar plant. Iberdrola (BME:), according to the agreement signed this Thursday between Herbert Diess and the president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, after the presentation of the plant on the land where it will be built in Sagunto.
Pedro Sánchez was accompanied at the presentation, which took place in a tent set up for this purpose on a roundabout near the land where the gigafactory will be located, by the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto.
/jla
(Photo / Video)
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