T1 Energy secures data center rezoning approval for Giga Arctic facility in Norway

T1 Energy, the company formerly known as Freyr Battery, just got the green light from Norwegian municipal officials to turn a chunk of its Arctic battery factory into a data center. Mo i Rana’s municipal government approved the rezoning of 161,000 square feet of the Giga Arctic facility on August 27, allowing T1 Energy to repurpose part of the massive site for data center operations. The company expects the facility to be operational with 50 MW of capacity by 2027. From batteries to bytes The Giga Arctic facility spans a total of 926,000 square feet. It was originally built with lithium-ion battery production in mind, back when Freyr Battery was riding the European gigafactory wave. T1 Energy, which trades on the NYSE under the ticker TE, has already secured a 50 MW grid allocation from Statnett, Norway’s transmission system operator. That allocation runs through 2033. T1 Energy sits in the grid queue for an additional 396 MW, which would bring total potential capacity to nearly 450 MW. Norway runs almost entirely on hydropower, energy prices are among the lowest in Europe, and the cold Arctic climate provides natural cooling. Cooling accounts for roughly 40% of a typical data cent...