Peter Rolton, executive chairman of electric vehicle battery startup Britishvolt, shows a billboard at the site of the company’s large planned battery plant, in the former industrial town of Blyth, Britain January 27, 2022.
Photo:
Nick Carey/REUTERS
John Kerry
boasted at Davos last week that the Inflation Reduction Act already has prompted the creation of 70 new battery companies in the U.S. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, boasts one fewer battery company after its green industrial-policy star failed last week.
Power by Britishvolt Ltd. entered administration on Tuesday and will be wound down at a cost of several hundred jobs. The startup, founded in 2019, was central to London’s green ambitions. Britishvolt was going to build a factory in northern England where 3,000 employees would produce lithium-ion batteries to support Britain’s electric-car industry. That industry doesn’t exist yet, and now neither will Britishvolt.
Britishvolt had faced financial troubles for a while and was undone by “insufficient equity investment for both the ongoing research it was undertaking and the development of its sites” in England, according to EY-Parthenon, the administrator winding down the firm. This happened despite the promise of subsidies of £100 million from the British government.
Britishvolt came to be at the center of former Prime Minister
green industrial policy, encapsulated by his plan to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The company demonstrated the U.K.’s position “at the helm of the global green industrial revolution,” Mr. Johnson rhapsodized a year ago.
The subsidies didn’t arrive in time, however, and the government last year refused a request for a £30 million advance when it said Britishvolt had failed to meet certain milestones. The company also suffered from higher interest rates and Britain’s escalating energy costs. Fortunately for overtaxed…
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