Belgian battery manufacturer ABEE (Avesta Battery & Energy Engineering), with headquarters in Nivove, plans to invest 1,1 billion euros over the next five years in three sites in Bulgaria.

Apart from a battery factory for producing a new generation of solid-phase lithium-ion batteries for the automotive industry, there will also be an R&D center to conduct research into the car battery of the future and a branch to recycle batteries at the end of their life.

The project called ‘BulgaPower’ is good for 10 GWh of battery capacity, which will eventually increase to 20 GWh, and will employ 1 200 people. The production facility will be built in the central city of Stara Zagora.

The research institution will be located in Plovdiv, the second-largest city in Bulgaria, and. recycling processing will occur in the eastern city of Burgas. With a capacity of 50 000 tons per year, it will become the largest recycling plant in the Balkan region. The three components will complement each other.

Batteries

Construction of the research center is expected in September next year. The production and recycling facilities will follow in 2025. ABEE relies partly on its own capital for financing and on Bulgarian state aid, which the European Commission must first approve.

Avesta Battery & Energy Engineering was founded in 2019 by former VUB (Brussels, Belgium) professor Noshin Omar. Initially, it focused on the engineering of battery systems, but after customer requests, it also focused on its own production, management, and recycling of batteries.

Delivery vehicles

In the meantime, the Belgian ABEE also joined forces with PilotCar to develop electric delivery vehicles in Belgium at ABEE’s new headquarters in Ninove. PilotCar is a developer and manufacturer of electric utility vehicles since 2011.

PilotCar is in operation with a group of companies all around the world. It has an assembly plant in Florida (US), branch offices & warehouses in Germany and Bulgaria. Headquarters of PilotCar are located in Bursa (Turkey).

Prof. Noshin Omar, CEO of ABEE: “This strategic collaboration between ABEE and PilotCar will increase the product and service portfolio of ABEE and PilotCar in Europe. This will enable us to strengthen our position in the market with state-of-the-art products with competitive prices.”