PowerCo Spain celebrates its first year by relocating its initial group of employees to Sagunto facilities 

The COO of PowerCo, Sebastian Wolf, and the board members of PowerCo Spain have visited the first temporary offices in Sagunto, from where the Construction team and part of the HSE team will work.  

The Volkswagen Group's battery company is celebrating its first year with the opening of a new office at the Sagunto site, although most of the team will continue working from the Valencia office for the time being. 

 PowerCo COO Sebastian Wolf: "The PowerCo project in Sagunto is progressing fast, and today we are taking a decisive step towards the start-up of the gigafactory and the sustainable production of battery cells in 2026".”

Sagunto (Valencia), January 15, 2024 – Volkwsagen Group's battery cell company, PowerCo Spaint, has inaugurated today its new offices at the Sagunto site, where the company's first nine employees will be based. This was confirmed by the PowerCo-COO, Sebastian Wolf, and the PowerCo Spain-CEO and COO, Thomas Dahlem, who visited the temporary facilities that the company has installed on the site and where the Construction team and part of the Health and Safety managers will be located for the time being. Chief Operations Officers of PowerCo, Sebastian Wolf, stressed that "the PowerCo project in Sagunto is progressing fast, and today we are taking a decisive step towards the start-up of the gigafactory and the sustainable production of battery cells in 2026".

After the opening of its first offices in Valencia for the start-up of the project, PowerCo has today made official, during the celebration of its first year, the opening of its new offices in Sagunto, where the gigafactory will be located and where all its workers will be installed progressively, as confirmed by the CEO of PowerCo Spain, Thomas Dahlem.

The board members of PowerCo Spain and PowwerCo-COO, Sebastian Wolf, have supervised this morning the evolution of the preliminary works, which have allowed the installation of the first temporary offices, electrical and water connections, and the design of roads and paths that will allow heavy machinery in the plot during the works. After these preliminary works, which are expected to be completed in the next few weeks, PowerCo Spain will begin the foundation works for the first phases of the gigafactory.

"The Sagunto gigafactory as a standard factory will allow us to considerably reduce both construction times and production costs, focusing our efforts on the design of sustainable and efficient battery cells", stated Sebastian Wolf during the visit, where he stressed the importance for the Volkswagen Group of generating added value and creating youth, quality and qualified employment around the project in Sagunto, as well as the sustainable production of battery cells.

"Our plant will not only be supplied by 100% renewable energy, but we will also contribute to the climate objective of achieving cleaner, more efficient and emission-free mobility, making the Valencia region a hub for electromobility in Southern Europe", PowerCo-COO indicated during the visit, which was also attended by the mayor of Sagunto, Darío Moreno, and the regional secretary for Economy, María José Mira.

Meanwhile, PowerCo Spain-CEO and COO, Thomas Dahlem, pointed out the "good rhythm" at which the works "and they will accelerate even more during 2024". "On 17 January 2023, we opened our offices in Valencia with just ten workers, and today -one year later- we have more than 90 employees and all the teams in place, construction work has begun, and we are finally opening our work centre in Sagunto".

Thomas Dahlem , who expressed his gratitude to the PowerCo team "for their efforts throughout the year", has also clarified that the first workers to be physically located in Sagunto will be the team of engineers "responsible for the construction of the plant and the supervision of the work, so that we can move forward at the highest speed and with the fewest setbacks", as well as part of the HSE team "who will coordinate all the necessary actions for the protection of all the people who work in the works of the gigafactory".

The Sagunto (Valencia) cell factory, which will start cell production in 2026, is being built over an area of around 170 ha, with an initial production capacity of 40GWh, expandable up to 60 GWh, which will supply cells for more than 500,000 vehicles. The planned investment of up to €3 billion has the potential to create up to 3,000 highly skilled jobs at the factory, along with thousands of indirect jobs within the region.