SKELLEFTEÅ Ville Huhtanen studied for a master’s degree in engineering at the University of Oulu. Compulsory studies included a battery course. The teacher was inspiring and Huhtanen concluded that it might be the field of the future.
Now Huhtanen has worked for two years at Northvolt’s battery factory in Skellefteå. Before that, the job was in the company’s development unit further south in Västerås.
– I wanted to be involved in such a new company and to acquire know-how that will be needed in the future as well, says Huhtanen.
The city of Skellefteå is like a showcase of how Sweden strives to implement the green transition, i.e. to create large-scale industry in an environmentally sustainable and emission-free manner.
Huhtanen is enjoying himself. At the factory, he has found a life partner with whom he shares an apartment. Huhtanen enjoys nature and hobby groups at the workplace, where they play, for example, padel.
A thousand Finns are considering moving to Skellefteåå
The Northvolt battery factory now has 1,700 employees, about 80 of different nationalities. After the expansions, in a couple of years the number of employees will be 4,000–5,000.
Northvolt spokesperson Sanna Bäckström was involved in the recruitment trip to Western Finland at the beginning of the year. According to Bäckström, the result was good.
– We have more than a thousand applications from Finland, hundreds are already being processed, and dozens of those willing are ready to move to Skellefteåå.
Bäckström recounts the reasons why a huge battery factory chose Skellefteå as its home location: a lot of emission-free, i.e. hydropower-produced energy available, good transport connections, i.e. the port, and plenty of local political support.
Akkutehdas spawns new customers for local entrepreneurs
Akkutehdas is Skellefteå’s new major employer, which now also brings bread to many companies in the service industry. English-speaking customers visit the bookstore every day.
A beauty salon entrepreneur has also gained new customers Anne-Marie Anderbrandtwhose services will have the next free appointments in a few weeks.
– We private entrepreneurs get more work, and that’s a good thing, Anderbrandt says.
Fast growth also has its downside
Sweden’s plans in the two northern counties, Västerbotten and Norrbotten, are big. The population of the region should increase by one hundred thousand in the next ten years.
Skellefteå’s population is now 74,000. In 2030, it is hoped to be 90,000.
Anna Kaiding hurrying along the pedestrian street with two large grocery bags. They are on their way to the hotel where he works.
Kaiding is excited about Skellefteå’s growth, but also reminds us of the flip side. For him, it was felt especially when it was time to buy an apartment.
– There is a shortage, for example, of schools, kindergartens and apartments. Their prices have risen drastically. So this has its pros and cons.
A new mood for doing things in the city
Anders Steinvall is from Skellefteå. He worked for a long time as an editor and correspondent for Dagens Nyheter. He was the editor-in-chief of the Norra Västerbotten magazine published in Skellefteå from 2006 to 2009.
Steinvall has written a book about the arrival of the battery factory in Skellefteåå.
– The challenges are great, but now the city has a completely new kind of faith in the future and a spirit of doing things, says Steinvall.
There is no manual for rapid growth
The decision-makers in Skellefteå are overjoyed when the migration loss has been turned into a win. However, difficulties are admitted. The housing shortage is so severe that short-term construction workers have had to build shack villages.
The chairman of the municipal board Lorentz Burman is one of the local decision-makers described by Steinvall in his book, who played a decisive role in the fact that the battery factory chose Skellefteå as its home location.
According to Burman, the decision to build barracks was made because it was necessary to separate from the housing queue those who applied for long-term housing and those who are on a short assignment, for example, in construction work.
Burman says that Sweden already knows how to prepare for large layoffs and their consequences, but there is no experience or manuals for rapid growth.
– We know how to act when the situation is the opposite – like for example when the Saab factory in Trollhättan was closed in 2013. We know how to organize training and replacement jobs. But there is no manual for what is happening in Norrbotten now, says Burman.
According to Statistics Sweden, the goal of 100,000 new residents in the northern counties will not be achieved at the current rate, the planned growth trajectory does not even include Skellefteå.