Battery and solar panel manufacturer T1 Energy has secured 50MW of capacity for a data center site in Norway that was previously set to manufacture battery cells.

The company this week announced that Norway’s national grid operator, Statnett, has assigned 50MW of grid power to T1 Energy’s existing 926,000-square-foot (86,030 sqm) industrial building in Mo i Rana.

“T1 is building a solar supply chain to deliver scalable, reliable, and low-cost energy in the United States. Our legacy assets in the Nordics could be developed as world-class data centers utilizing the region’s abundant low-cost power and human capital with a strong industrial heritage,” said Daniel Barcelo, T1 Energy’s chairman and CEO.

Mo i Rana is a city and administrative center of Rana Municipality in the Helgeland region of Nordland county, just south of the Arctic Circle.

T1 said the site remains in the interconnection queue for 396MW of power. The firm said the reservation confirmation from Statnett should advance discussions with potential customers and financial investors evaluating the site for long-term strategic development.

The company noted the 50MW of N-0 power requires an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and step-down transformer infrastructure to serve data center loads as early as Q2 2027. The temporary power allotment runs through the end of 2033.

“Access to 50MW is a key step forward. It represents the first phase of a world-class data center development and accelerates our dialogue with parties seeking available, scalable, and secure European AI infrastructure,” added Andreas Bentzen, T1 Energy CTO. “Global AI compute demand is expanding faster than new grid capacity. Strategic locations, such as Mo i Rana, where abundant electricity and industrial infrastructure intersect, are in high demand.”

T1 describes itself as an “energy solutions provider building an integrated US supply chain for solar and batteries.”

Previously known as Freyer Battery, the company first announced plans to develop a 120,000 sqm (11,148 sqm) lithium-ion battery factory in the Mo Industrial Park in Mo i Rana, known as Giga Arctic, in 2022. The site was to develop 29GWh of battery capacity annually at full build-out.

In 2023, however, the company announced a pause to construction of the factory. In the hopes of establishing a “competitive regulatory framework conditions for scaling battery manufacturing” with Norwegian and European regulators.

However, after acquiring a solar manufacturing plan in 2024, the company began looking at “value optimization opportunities” across its European assets and is now in the process of winding down its legacy European operations.

The company said it was starting a campaign to “highlight the potential value of Giga Arctic repurposed as a data center or AI infrastructure hub” last year, provided it could restore previously granted power access with Statnett.

Separate from the 50MW assignment, T1 is awaiting a decision from Energiklagenemnda, or the Norwegian Energy Complaints Board, on a dispute around the allocation of an incremental 60MW of grid capacity.

Statnett had revoked T1’s reservation in the electricity grid after plans for the battery factory were dropped, the latter losing its claim on some 60MW of grid capacity. The decision was backed by the Norwegian Energy Regulatory Authority RME in December, but T1 is appealing. The company has previously said it could take legal action to restore the capacity.