This week’s speaker Bo Normark has a long industrial carrier in ABB, is a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) and Honorary Doctor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. His main activity in recent years is working for EIT InnoEnergy a EU lead initiative spearheading the way to a decarbonised Europe by 2050 through the leadership of three industrial alliances: battery storage, green hydrogen, and solar photovoltaics.
In 2017 there was basically no battery industry existing in Europe and the electrification of the automotive industry was in its infancy. The automotive industry was still questioning how fast the development would go and if full electric drive was the right answer. At the same time there was an increasing concern from the European Commission that the lack of a domestic battery industry could not only bring manufacturing of batteries mainly to Asia but potentially also harm the European Automotive Industry. The response from the Commission was to assign EIT InnoEnergy with the task to create and lead the execution of the Industrial Value Chain of EU Battery Alliance. This initiative came at a time when EIT InnoEnergy had just invested in the battery start-up Northvolt in Sweden. In the following four years Europe has become a leading actor in the Global Battery Value Chain, and not the least Sweden has taken a major role in this transformation. The presentation describes this transformation and discusses some of the success factors and the way forward.
Please note that due to the recommendations on Covid19 We will have this meeting on Zoom only. Non-members should send an email to stockholm-international@rotary.se to receive the meeting login information.
