Netherlands-based consultant Arcadis has been hired to plan and manage construction of an electric-vehicle battery cell gigafactory on a brownfield site in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Set to be one of Europe’s biggest, the factory is being developed by Automotive Cells Company (ACC), a joint venture among carmakers Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz and TotalEnergies’ battery subsidiary, Saft.
It will be built next to an Opel component plant on a 34-hectare site housing a former industrial complex that will be demolished.
The first production line is planned to start operating in 2025, producing batteries with a total annual capacity of 13.4 GWh.
When finished in 2030, the plant will include three production lines with a combined capacity of 40 GWh, enough to power some 600,000 vehicles a year.
Arcadis has already provided environmental due diligence, decontamination, and deconstruction services for 1.3 million cubic metres of old industrial space.
It has now been awarded the planning and project management package for the new gigafactory, which sees it leading the project management office.
“We are seeing massive investments in the gigafactory market globally,” said Martijn Karrenbeld, Arcadis’ global director for industrial manufacturing.
