Specialist battery company Sunlight, a member of Olympia Group, will significantly increase manufacturing capacity and create new jobs at its state-of-the-art plant in Xanthi, northern Greece, following a 25 million euros, 10-year loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
EIB’s financing will support an innovative investment project to increase the production capacity for lithium batteries, expand Research and Development capabilities, as well as allow the company to produce vital components which are currently outsourced. The project is expected to create 205 new skilled jobs in Xanthi, a less developed region of the EU in terms of per-capita-GDP, highlighting the EIB’s commitment to equitable growth and regional cohesion.
This is the second round of EIB support for Sunlight – the first, a 12.5 million euro loan, was agreed upon in 2018. The operation is part of the EIB’s dedicated package of support to REPowerEU and the Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age, which are designed to accelerate the energy transition and help expand Europe’s state-of-the-art manufacturing capacity in strategic technologies required for the decarbonization of the economy.
“As the green energy transition accelerates, battery innovation is crucial for improving modern life and the European Investment Bank is pleased to support this new manufacturing and innovation investment,” said Kyriacos Kakouris, EIB Vice President for Cyprus. “This new, 10-year loan is designed to reflect the specific financing needs of innovation-driven firms and demonstrates the EIB’s increased support for transformational investment across Greece.”
“The backing of the EIB is a testament to our solid business strategy and vision; to develop innovative lithium-ion cells for the industrial energy storage markets in European soil,” stated Lampros Bisalas, CEO of Sunlight. “The funding of the production scale pilot line for LFP prismatic cells, which our company currently executes, is an additional support which proves the validity of our aspirations to scale the outcome of the pilot line in a 20 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annual production gigafactory.”