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Clean energy co. abandons plans for Georgia factory after buying Texas plant

Freyr Battery acquired Trina Solar’s 5 GW solar module manufacturing facility in Wilmer, Texas. Photo courtesy of Freyr Battery

A clean energy company is abandoning a plan to build a giant electric battery factory in Atlanta's suburbs after it shifted to buy a solar panel plant in Texas.

Freyr Battery told officials on Thursday that it wouldn't build a $2.6 billion plant that was supposed to hire more than 700 people, after sending a Jan. 21 letter to the Coweta County Development Authority announcing its plans to end the project.

The factory would have built batteries to store electricity produced by renewable sources and release it later, company officials said. It would have been the second-largest battery factory worldwide when it was announced in 2023. But Freyr, a startup founded in 2018, never began construction on the 368-acre site.

Freyr, which moved its corporate headquarters from Norway to Newnan in part to maximize its eligibility for the U.S. tax benefits of President Joe Biden's climate law, said it was shifting its focus to a newly opened solar panel factory that it bought last year for $340 million from top Chinese solar panel maker Trina Solar. The facility is located in Wilmer, Texas (Dallas County).

“We are so grateful for the support and partnership we found in Coweta County and throughout Georgia," Freyr spokesperson Amy Jaick wrote in a statement, "However, as noted in our December release, we are focusing at the moment on the solar module manufacturing facility in Texas.”

The Newnan Times-Herald first reported the story, saying Freyr senior vice president of business development Jason Peace met Thursday with local officials. Peace told Coweta County Development Authority board members that the decision was driven by rising interest rates, falling battery prices, a change in company leadership and a shift in its goals, authority President Sarah Jacobs wrote in an email Friday.

The Georgia Department of Economic Development said the state conveyed a $7 million grant to buy a site for Freyr in Newnan, about 35 miles southwest of Atlanta. Department spokesperson Jessica Atwell said the state and company are “working together” to ensure the money is “repaid expeditiously.” Freyr may also owe money to Coweta County.

“Georgia’s incentives process protects the Georgia taxpayer, and when a company’s plans change, that process ensures discretionary incentives are repaid," Atwell said in a statement.

Jacobs said planning for the project made Coweta County a stronger candidate for future projects.

The company had said it planned to build battery factories in Norway and Finland but said in November that it will try to sell its European business. The company also said it was terminating its license for technology to make batteries, paying $3 million to the company it was licensed from.

Tom Einar Jensen, then the company's CEO, told investors in August that it had grown difficult to raise money to make batteries because of a surplus of Chinese batteries being produced at lower costs. The company said it was switching its strategy into businesses that would allow it to raise cash, including solar panel manufacturing. The company saw its cash on hand fall from $253 million at the end of 2023 to $182 million on Sept. 30.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has targeted recruitment of the electric vehicle industry.

Korean firm SK Innovation built a $2.6 billion battery plant in Commerce, northeast of Atlanta and hired 3,000 workers, but later laid off or furloughed some workers.

Hyundai Motor Group has started production at a $7.6 billion electric vehicle and battery plant near Savannah, with plans to hire 8,500 workers. Electric truck maker Rivian revived its plans to build a plant east of Atlanta after a $6.6 billion loan from the Biden administration.

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A View From HETI

Houston-based Mati Carbon won the global XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, funded by The Musk Foundation. Photo via LinkedIn.

Houston-based Mati Carbon has won the $50 million grand prize in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, backed by Elon Musk’s charitable organization, The Musk Foundation.

Mati was selected in 2024 as one of 20 global finalists. The company removes carbon through its Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) program that works with agricultural farms in Africa and India.

The 3-year-old startup accelerates the natural process of rock weathering (ERW) by applying pulverized basalt to croplands of partnered smallholder farmers, free of charge. Mati says the farmers it partners with are some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“Winning this XPRIZE competition is an incredible honor and a definitive validation of our research and development, and building out the infrastructure needed to impact millions of farmers while delivering verifiable carbon dioxide removal at a gigaton scale,” Mati Carbon Founder and CEO Shantanu Agarwal, said in a news release. “I couldn’t be prouder, not just of the Mati team, but of our collaborators, research partners and the thousands of smallholder farmers who let us be part of their lives. This XPRIZE recognition will allow us to collaborate with local partners to accelerate the use of enhanced rock weathering across the Global South.”

Mati reports that it plans to use the award to “scale its efforts working with smallholder farmers worldwide.” Apart from the XPRIZE funding, Mati plans to grow its model through the sale of CDR credits. According to the company, it counts Shopify, Stripe, and H&M among its early carbon credit buyers.

“Mati Carbon’s deployments bolster farmers’ livelihoods through improved soil health, reduced agricultural inputs, and increased income at zero cost to them. Mati Carbon’s team has developed a scientifically rigorous approach to monitoring and verification, and excelled across each of XPRIZE’s prize evaluation criteria – operational, sustainability, and cost metrics – giving the XPRIZE judges the highest confidence in Mati Carbon’s solution’s long-term scalability,” the XPRIZE judges wrote.

Houston-based Vaulted Deep took home the second-runner-up prize in the competition and $8 million for its organic waste storage process. The company provides permanent carbon storage by injecting nonhazardous organic waste deep underground. It spun off with $8 million in seed funding from Advantek Waste Management Services in 2023.

"Our approach is grounded in geomechanical injection techniques that have been safely deployed globally for decades by our team and predecessors," Omar Abou-Sayed, co-founder and executive chairman of Vaulted, said in a separate release. "XPRIZE recognized that this is a proven approach—already in use, delivering impact, and built on the kind of reliability the industry needs to scale responsibly."

Launched in 2021, the four-year XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition challenged global innovators to deploy scalable solutions for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. More than 1,300 teams from 88 countries competed. XPRIZE finalists were required to remove at least 1,000 tonnes of CO2 over a one-year demonstration period.

French company NetZero took home the first-runner-up prize of $15 million, and London-based UNDO came in as third-runner-up with a $5 million prize.

Since the announcement of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has cut climate funding for agencies, projects and research. While the Musk Foundation sponsored the XPRIZE event, it is not affiliated with the California-based organization, according to the Associated Press.

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