Battery start-up Italvolt Spa has struck a partnership agreement with ABB for the development of a new gigafactory in Italy.

ABB will provide Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) at the Italian start-up’s site in Scarmagno and jointly explore how automation, electrification and digitalisation solutions can fast-track production processes for battery manufacturing.

Italvolt aims to create one of the largest gigafactories in Europe for the production and storage of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), with a planned capacity of 45GWh for around 550,000 EVs per year.

Lars Carlstrom, CEO and Founder of Italvolt said: “Italvolt has the objective of gathering industrial excellences in each area of our business and we are glad to announce this partnership agreement with ABB, one of the foremost names in the global industry.

“ABB’s state of art technology will help us in ensuring the sustainability of our production plant as well as enable efficient, reliable and cost-effective production. We are happy that ABB is joining us for the journey.”