EXCLUSIVE: FREYR Battery Sets Sights On Energy Storage Play With New Gigafactory

FREYR Battery FREY reported better-than-expected earnings results on Monday, but as a pre-revenue company, investors should be paying more attention to its operational update.

"We basically updated on our progress on all the different assets that we are developing," FREYR Battery CEO Tom Jensen said Monday on Benzinga's "Stock Market Movers."

What To Know: FREYR Battery's customer qualification plant (CQP) demonstrates the company's technology at industrial scale, Jensen said. The CQP team continues to work with FREYR's vendors to coordinate and finalize deliveries and perform acceptance tests.

FREYR Battery is currently working through the diligence phase of its project financing process for Giga Arctic. The company aims to replicate its demonstration plant process in eight different production lines at the new factory, the FREYR Battery CEO said. 

The next step will be building a gigafactory in the U.S., which FREYR Battery announced last week. 

"We have an opportunity to upscale what we are building there ... so we are super excited about the opportunity. It keeps growing in front of our eyes," Jensen said.

"Building batteries both in Europe and in the United States is something that our existing customers and an increasing number of new customers really look favorably upon."

What's Next: The FREYR Battery CEO told Benzinga that it's important for the company to position itself in the U.S. for a number of reasons. 

"Energy storage is going to be huge in the U.S. As the U.S. decarbonizes its society and moves from a largely carbon-based energy feedstock into largely renewable energy power generation, you will need a lot of storage," Jensen said. 

The U.S. is currently the hottest market for energy storage solution deployment as a result of recent developments including the Inflation Reduction Act, he said, adding that the company is just starting to make its mark in the U.S. 

"Our ambition is to go to 200 gigawatt hours of capacity by 2030," he said.

In order to ramp up capacity to said levels, FREYR will have to build four or five times what has already been announced, Jensen said. 

"There is a lot of incoming interest from multiple jurisdictions for us to replicate our business model," he said. 

FREYR Battery's big plans will be capital-intensive. Jensen told Benzinga the company is already evaluating potential strategic, industrial and financial partnerships.

"We will keep coming back to the market and giving them updates on where we are and keep driving that storage growth story," Jensen said. 

Check out the interview with the FREYR Battery CEO below:

FREY Price Action: FREYR Battery has a 52-week high of $16.94 and a 52-week low of $6.42.

The stock was down 0.17% at $15.13 at time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of FREYR Battery.