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GigaVaasa

GigaVaasa

The energy technology hub makes Vaasa the best location for creating future innovations

We are moving forward quickly because the Vaasa region has stood unanimously behind the battery factory project ever since it was made public.
Tomas Häyry
Mayor of Vaasa

The groundwork for your business has already been done in Vaasa. The extensive GigaVaasa project has resulted in a world-class operating environment for companies in the energy technology field. With a broad company base, skilled experts and energy know-how, Vaasa’s energy technology hub makes GigaVaasa the best location for investment and creating future innovations, particularly for battery manufacturing.

 

We have reserved a site exclusively for the battery industry, where your business can be placed. The GigaVaasa area is unique in the Nordic countries and throughout Europe. It is a uniform area, hundreds of hectares in size, and highly suitable for battery factories. The planned area, which will serve as an industrial zone for hazardous chemicals, is logistically placed in the middle of Finland’s most significant reserves of the key resources required for the battery industry. By investing your business activities in the area, you can utilise the cheapest sustainable energy in Europe as well as make use of the innovative and collaborative energy technology design and manufacturing skills of our local workforce. In such an ecosystem, development times are not only shorter…production costs are lower too!

It’s great that a new energy cluster with excellent export potential is being developed in co-operation with different actors in Finland. We are happy to be involved in such a co-operation network.
Pertti Lamberg,
CEO, Keliber Oy

The GigaVaasa factory area

  • Location – Between International Vaasa Airport and railway, near to the highways E3 and E8.
  • Size of the total area – About 1,000 hectares.
  • Industrial Chemical Plot sizes – Plots of different sizes, the largest about 200 hectares
  • Environmental investigation – Completed 11/2017.
    Environmental impact assessment programme with current state evaluation: completed 12/2017

Vaasa offers all four means of transport – air, sea, road and rail, which ensures that the GigaVaasa factory area is always easily accessible.

Local supply of key resources

  • The most significant lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite resources are all located within 2-3 hours of Vaasa
  • Finland has significant cobalt resources. The world’s largest cobalt refinery, Freeport Cobalt, is located in Kokkola.
  • In Sotkamo there is one of the largest nickel mines in Europe. Terrafame in Sotkamo is aiming to start considerable cobalt sulphate and nickel sulphate production in 2020.
  • Keliber, a Finnish company with significant lithium reserves, are starting lithium production with a long-term goal of producing 9,000 tons of battery standard lithium products annually.
  • Norilsk Nickel in Harjavalta produces 50,000 tons of nickel annually.
  • BASF is establishing their battery material production in Harjavalta.
  • Finland is recognised as being highly prospective for graphite exploration. The first mine, part of the Beowulf graphite project in Heinävesi, could be opened in the early 2020’s.