Fernández Vara in the appearance this Friday with the counselor Olga García and the general secretary of Industrial, Raúl Blanco, behind. /
The president of Extremadura has assured that the region “will lead the green and digital revolution in the 21st century” and has been grateful to Pedro Sánchez for attracting these important investments
“Today a new time begins for this region, which can now lead the green and digital revolution.” This is how the president of the Junta de Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara, began the press conference called urgently this Friday after the official announcement by the Chinese group Envision that it will build, together with Acciona Energía, a gigafactory for automotive batteries in Navalmoral de la Mata , as Thursday progressed TODAY. He has said that he welcomes the announcement with “serene but profound joy.”
Fernández Vara has described as “the great opportunity in our history” the industrial scenario that opens before Extremadura with the arrival of the gigafactory. In relation to Envision’s announcement, he recalled that the initial investment of 1,000 million euros for 3,000 jobs reported this Friday by the Chinese group corresponds to the first phase of the project, which is the one presented to the Perte of the electric vehicle whose The term ends today, and it must be executed before 2025. Afterwards, the other two phases of the plant would be developed until reaching a final capacity of 30 GWh, according to TODAY sources, with around 2,500 million investment.
After remembering Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra for making possible endowments that today are essential, and thanking José Antonio Monago for accompanying him to some of the key meetings with investors, the Chairman of the Board said that the gigafactory « It will be a shock to Campo Arañuelo”, and has highlighted the “discreet but very important” role played by the mayor of Navalmoral de la Mata, Raquel Medina, in the numerous visits made to the area in recent months by the directors of Envision and Acciona.
The origin
On how the project germinated and ended up forging, Fernández Vara has revealed that the contacts began at the beginning of this year, when “the meetings with Volkswagen overlapped with those we began to have with Envision.” The gigafactory of the Volkswagen group was finally for Sagunto, but according to Vara in the year of preparatory work that took place with them “we discovered that we were not less than anyone and that we were more than many”. Both with Volkswagen first and later with Envision there were -he recalls- marathon meetings with exhaustive documentation and examinations before courts without prior agenda« that made him realize the possibilities to attract this type of industry to Extremadura, in which, he has assured, » many people already see the green pile of Europe«.
The role of the national government
The president of the regional executive also highlighted the role of the Government of Spain, which “has been irreplaceable in attracting investment”, and specifically that of President Pedro Sánchez, who “is the one who first speaks with investors in international forums”. «Spain is going to lead the industry of the 21st century in Europe», he has ventured.
In this sense, he has highlighted that “there is no better way to balance a country than the balance in investment between the territories, nor a better way to fight for the rural world than to have a decent job and with higher wages, with good agreements: and that is called industry.
Fernández Vara has also spoken of the “enormous challenge” that training the necessary workforce now involves both for the Navalmoral gigafactory and for other industrial projects in the region related to the “green economy”.
lithium mines
Regarding the importance that the presence of lithium in Extremadura could have had for the arrival of the gigafactory, the president of the Board has admitted that “having natural resources has been a factor of empathy when it comes to attracting projects”, yes It has also clarified that it does not rule on the possible granting of exploitation permits for the Cáceres and Cañaveral lithium mines, since they must follow the administrative procedure established for this. He has also separated the gigafactory from these two deposits in the sense that they are the ones that will necessarily supply the lithium for the Navalmoral plant. It should be remembered in this regard that the lithium hydroxide that comes out of the mine treatment plants does not go directly to the battery gigafactories, but rather is used in a previous step of the production chain, specifically in the cathode factories .
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.