2023-10-30 21:00:09
If you look at the area from above, Eemshaven looks like it has been captured by a spider. The port in the far north of Groningen is held in place by high-voltage cables and two cables come ashore across the seabed carrying green energy from Norway and Denmark. There are many hectares of farmland around the harbor, the Oostpolder area. They think Groningen is the ideal location for new energy-intensive industry, for example a battery factory.
Something similar applies to an ’empty’ site near Klazienaveen, in the southeast of Drenthe. This month the farmer dug up his potatoes, but the municipality of Emmen would like to establish a battery factory in the Rundedal. Such a factory offers ‘structural sustainable employment’, as responsible councilor Guido Rink (PvdA) puts it. Such a factory would also be of great added value for the energy transition and the ‘re-industrialization’ of the Netherlands. In the geopolitical battle with China and the US, the European Union wants to start making more itself once more.
It doesn’t stop at wishful thinking. Rink and a dozen other northerners are working hard to bring a battery manufacturer to the Netherlands. These batteries can be used, for example, by the German and French car industries or by bus builder VDL in Eindhoven. Now the required ‘battery cells’, the part in which the electricity is stored, mainly come from Asia. Soon they might be made in the Northern Netherlands.
Due to the high number of jobs, several European regions would like such a factory. In this competitive battle, the Dutch northern regions continue to fall one step short. For example, last summer the Taiwanese company Prologium chose France instead of Emmen. Verkor, ACC and Envision AESC previously established themselves in France; a third Northvolt factory went to Germany.
‘Team Batteries Northern Netherlands’
The Netherlands does not have the capacity to act quickly, according to the negotiators involved. In addition to Alderman Rink, this concerns professor of battery technology Moniek Tromp of the University of Groningen and Dina Boonstra and Wubbo Everts of the Northern Development Company. Collectively you might call them ‘Team Batteries Northern Netherlands’. Cas König from Groningen Seaports is also part of it, but was not spoken to for this piece.
“The Netherlands actually has no system to attract large companies like Prologium,” says Tromp. There is not enough money available in the budget. The top management of such an international company also looks at other countries where they may receive more tax benefits, or a higher discount on energy prices and more subsidies for research and development.
The government can help in such a case. “But no one dares to decide that we find such a factory important and that we now have to risk investing hundreds of millions in it,” says Tromp. She has been designated as the ‘figurehead’ of the Dutch battery sector. France supports Prologium with 1.5 billion euros and a (high) discount on the energy price. The northern provinces only had a pot of 300 million euros available, from which several projects are already being financed.
Macron is better at it
“Here in the north we have the space, technology, labor potential, a seaport, rail connections and knowledge institutions that a battery manufacturer can connect to,” says Boonstra. “We have everything except the money and attention. Macron is better at that.”
The French president regularly invites top executives of such large industrial parties to the Élysée, his official residence. In a statement, Prologium praises that level of personal contact. ‘It paved the way for our decision. Following that meeting, we continued to receive high-level support from the French government, the region and local authorities,” the company told Bloomberg.
They missed such warmth in the north, says Tromp. During the same period in the Netherlands, a Prologium delegation mainly had to deal with officials from Economic Affairs. “In the end, I think they saw the minister briefly,” she adds.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs does not agree with that reading. It actually says that it spends ‘a lot of time’ on these types of processes. For example, Minister Micky Adriaansens met the CEO of Prologium in November last year for an introductory meeting.
Ceremonial function
Why such personal contact is so important? Councilor Rink from Emmen knows. In such a charm offensive, directors have a ceremonial function. “If the minister visits personally, you make it clear that there is national support. Then you know that there is commitment and that local administrators can appeal to that minister.”
Because the construction of such a company is a complicated process from an administrative perspective: permits must be arranged, the power grid strengthened, and any objection procedures must be overcome. Then it helps if the entire Dutch government is on board. Because such a manufacturer is in a hurry. Every month that he has to wait longer to produce costs money.
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