FREYR Battery has provided an update on the Company?s operational progress at the Customer Qualification Plant (?CQP?) in Mo i Rana, Norway. FREYR conducts successful unit cell production trials at CQP: FREYR?s teams, vendors, and partners at the CQP have reached the Company?s most significant technical milestone to date by producing unit cells with the full functionality of the Casting and Unit Cell Assembly machine, the novel component of the SemiSolid? platform.

While significant work remains to further streamline automation, improve material composition, and to complete the final stages of commissioning, this accomplishment marks the completion of critical path equipment commissioning and is expected to enable FREYR to begin increasing production speeds and manufacturing multi-layer battery sample cells in second quarter of 2024. Overview of the SemiSolidTM manufacturing process: Unlike conventional lithium-ion battery manufacturing, which involves producing electrodes on separate equipment before assembling them into cells which are subsequently filled with electrolyte, the SemiSolidTM technology employs a continuous and integrated process. The SemiSolidTM process starts with electrode coating and proceeds to electrode stacking.

The next-generation SemiSolidTM production line equipment (?PLE?) then creates independent ?unit cells,? each containing a cathode, anode, and separator. The subsequent steps required to produce a complete cell in a pouch ?

which is a stack of multiple unit cells, have already been developed and validated on the SemiSolidTM platform. As such, today?s announcement that FREYR and its partners have begun producing these unit cells with the full automation of the Casting and Unit Cell Assembly constitutes a significant technical achievement. This production trial was enabled by the successful integration of casting webs across the cathode, anode, and merge units of the Casting and Unit Assembly equipment using the highly advanced Multi-Carrier System (?MCS?), which is the largest of its kind globally according to FREYR?s automation partner Siemens AG.

Following this successful production trial at the CQP, FREYR is following a three-step road map to producing sample cells in second quarter of 2024: Conduct a cell production trial using a continuous process with no interruptions to fine tune the equipment; Surge production speeds for short periods of time to demonstrate GWh scale manufacturing capability for the casting of electrodes; and Produce multi-layer, mechanically in-spec pouch battery sample cells in second quarter of 2024.