With a €1.4bn battery factory planned in Romanian, ABEE announces a similar €1.1bn investment in Bulgaria

With a €1.4bn battery factory planned in Romanian, ABEE announces a similar €1.1bn investment in Bulgaria

With a €1.4bn battery factory planned in RO, ABEE announces a similar €1.1bn investment in BG   Avesta Battery & Energy Engineering (ABEE), an SME-type company in Belgium that announced a €1.4bn investment in a lithium-ion battery factory in Galati (Romania), unveiled plans to invest €1.1bn in several similar factories in Bulgaria over the next three to five years, according to SeeNews quoting Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov.
The investment project in Bulgaria “will be among the largest in Europe” and includes plants in the cities of Stara Zagora, Plovdiv and Burgas, Bulgaria’s news agency BTA reported.
In Romania, ABEE’s plans haven’t advanced since the investment was announced in June 2023. The mayor of Galati – where the factory is supposed to be developed, announced in October that the local authorities are close to getting state aid for the investor “because this investment also needs a form of aid from the Romanian state”.
In June 2023, an event was organized at the Ninove town hall in Belgium where ABEE has its headquarters, during which the company announced the €1.4bn investment in Romania that would generate 8,000 jobs.
Galati mayor Pucheanu said in October that “the formula for state aid is finalized, but the government must find the source of funding for this state aid.” He suggested that the money could come from Romania’s EU-funded €18bn Modernization Fund managed by the Ministry of Energy. For this to happen, however, Romania 9or Bulgaria) should include the ABEE’s investment on the list of proposals that are subject to final approval by the European Commission. 
The Modernisation Fund is a programme from the European Union to support ten member states (including Romania and Bulgaria) to meet 2030 energy targets by helping to modernise energy systems and improve energy efficiency. For Romania, the projects eligible are those for renewable energy, nuclear energy, electricity transmission networks, networks for the distribution and transport of natural gas, and the financing of gas storage projects.
The Modernization Fund is financed, at the level of the European Union, from the sale of 2% of the total greenhouse gas emission certificates. Romania was allocated nearly 12% of the total. Source: SeeNews ^