Atlanta (AP) – A clean energy company is abandoning a plan to build a giant electric battery factory in Atlanta suburbs after it changed to buy a solar panel plant in Texas.

Freyr Battery told Newnan officials last week that he would not build a plant of $ 2.6 billion that it would be supposed to hire more than 700 people, after sending a letter from January 21 to the Coweta Counting Development Authority announcing your plans to finish the project.

The factory would have built batteries to store electricity produced by renewable sources and launch 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 started construction at the 368 Acres site (149 hectares).

Freyr, who moved his corporate headquarters to Newnan in part to maximize his eligibility for the fiscal benefits of the United States of the climate law of President Joe Biden, said he was changing his focus on a freshly opened solar panel factory Last year for $ 340 million. of the best manufacturer of Chinese solar panels.

“We are very grateful for the support and association that we found in Coweta Count At this time in the manufacture of the solar module installation in Texas “.

Newnan Times-Hald first reported history, saying that the senior vice president of Freyr’s commercial development, Jason Peace, met Thursday with local officials. Peace told the members of the Board of the Coweta County Development Authority that the decision was promoted by the increase in interest rates, the fall in battery prices, a change in the company’s leadership and a Change in its objectives, wrote the president of the authority, Sarah Jacobs, in an email on Friday.

The Georgia Economic Development Department said the State transmitted a subsidy of $ 7 million to buy a site for Freyr in Newnan, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of Atlanta. Department spokeswoman Jessica Atwell said the State and the company are “working together” to ensure that money is “quickly reimbursed.” Freyr can also have money to Coweta County.

“Georgia’s incentive process protects Georgia’s taxpayer, and when a company’s plans change, that process ensures that discretionary incentives are paid,” ATWELL said in a statement.

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

The company had said that it planned to build battery factories in Norway and Finland, but in November he said he will try to sell his European business. The company also said that it was finishing its license for technology to manufacture batteries, paying $ 3 million to the company of which I was licensed.

Tom Einar Jensen, then CEO of the company, told investors in August that it had made it difficult to raise money to earn batteries due to a surplus of Chinese batteries that occur at lower costs. The company said it was changing its strategy to companies, which would allow it to raise cash, including the manufacture of solar panels. The company saw its available cash from $ 253 million at the end of 2023 to $ 182 million on September 30.

The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp has directed the recruitment of the electric vehicles industry.

The Korean firm SK Innovation built a battery plant of $ 2.6 billion in commerce, northeast of Atlanta and hired 3,000 workers, but then said goodbye or detached some workers.

Hyundai Motor Group has begun production in an electric vehicle and a battery plant of $ 7.6 billion near Savannah, with plans to hire 8,500 workers. The electric truck manufacturer Rivian revived his plans to build a plant east of Atlanta after a loan of $ 6.6 billion of the Biden administration.

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