Company behind UK's first gigafactory appoints construction project director

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Nicky Godding

Britishvolt, the Coventry-based lithium ion battery company, which last month confirmed it will build the UK’s first large-scale battery gigaplant at the former RAF base of Bro Tathan, Wales, has appointed Ray Macera as Project Director for its construction and implementation.

Ray Macera, who is reporting directly to Britishvolt CEO, Orral Nadjari, leads one of the largest industrial investments in British history. The gigaplant will produce world-leading lithium-ion battery technology for the automotive and renewable energy sectors. He joins Britishvolt as a veteran of leading large-scale automotive projects, most recently, the Gestamp pressing facility that supplies Jaguar Land Rover’s Nitra plant in Slovakia.

NG Bailey, the UK’s largest independent engineering construction business, will lead the gigaplant’s build. Oxford-heaquartered Ridge and Partners will be providing project management of the architecture. Both businesses have recently helped deliver the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UK BIC) in Coventry which has been funded by the government backed Faraday Battery Challenge.

Additionally, automotive manufacturing experts Rolton Group Ltd have been selected to undertake all engineering design. While property company Savills are undertaking infrastructure and planning services.

Britishvolt CEO, Orral Nadjari said: “Our mission is for the gigaplant to begin supplying the automotive and energy industries with world-class batteries, powering the electric revolution. So it’s essential that we hire world-class talent and forge leading partnerships to help us achieve our goal.

“With these highly experienced new partners leading the construction phase we have the expertise to build and equip a gigaplant that will be transformative for UK car-making, the renewable energy industry and the entire British economy.

“We already have momentum, working and deploying capital expenditure early in the process so that we can accurately assess, the level of UK government support that will be required to enable us to move the project forwards.

“We’re also working with agility and speed. Thanks to previous experience with the UK BIC plant, we have achieved more progress in the past five weeks than similar projects have done in six months.”

Britishvolt Project Director, Ray Macera, said:“It’s exciting to be involved in such a strategically important project for Britain’s industrial future. Building a gigaplant in Wales is a giant task but with such a focused mission and such strength in depth with the pedigree of Britishvolt’s appointed partners we are already off to a strong start.”

The new gigaplant is being designed by leading Italian design experts Pininfarina. It is set to be sited on a former RAF base in Bro Tathan, South Wales and will house Britishvolt’s manufacturing and R and D facilities.

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.