Report reveals €13bn cost of Europe battery materials plan

The EU needs to invest more than €13 billion ($14 billion) by 2040 to guarantee just a quarter of key battery materials from European sources to power its green energy agenda, says analysis released on May 9.

The study by European electrochemical and thermal energy storage research center, CIC energiGUNE, assessed the impact of the Critical Raw Materials Act published by the European

Commission in March.

Study author and CIC sustainability expert, Andrea Casas, says analysis of the European Commission’s own estimates show the bloc will need to invest €7 billion by 2030 and €13.2 billion by 2040 to guarantee European sources of 25% of the region’s demand for lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese and natural graphite.

EU member states could expect to contribute up to large-scale production plant for cathode materials in Europe. batteries for mobility and energy storage is expected to increase 89-fold by 2050, Casas says.

€5 billion in public funding by 2040 towards the overall total, if the bloc wants to follow the lead of the US in supporting its battery sector under the Inflation Reduction Act.

However, the study does not comment on whether the bulk of the investment will come from European Commission coffers or private investors.

The plant is sold out for the next few years and will supply products tailored to the specific requirements of cell manufacturers and automobile manufacturers in Europe.

Meanwhile, Sefcovic, who has championed the European Battery Alliance that was set up in 2017, said it has attracted more than €180 billion ($196 billion) of investments to date.

“There are now more than 160 industrial projects being developed along the entire value chain, with around 30 announced lithium-ion gigafactories and around 70GWh installed capacity by 2022.

Meanwhile, the demand for rare earths used to manufacture permanent magnets used in wind turbines or electric vehicles should increase six to seven times by 2050.

Casas says it is indisputable that critical raw materials are essential to EU plans for a network of battery gigafactories to support the clean energy transition.

The COO of Volkswagen’s PowerCo battery cells subsidiary, Sebastian Wolf is among the latest keynote speaker to be announced for this year’s Batteries Event, which will open in Lyon, France, on October 10.

Conference organizer Avicenne Energy has also published the first detailed preliminary program for the event, where more than 150 speakers are set to address more than 1,000 delegates.

The Batteries Event will be held at the Centre de Congrès until October 13 and cover a range of topical issues impacting the industry ranging from trends and best practices to battery production and recycling.

Program and registration details are online. See also the events section of this magazine.

According to Casas, other strategic raw materials are also likely to require large investments such as copper for electrifying infrastructure, silicon for solar panels or platinum group metals for hydrogen electrolysis.

To date, the EU is almost exclusively dependent on imports for many critical raw materials, Casas says.

“In addition, the suppliers of these imports are often highly concentrated in a small number of third countries, both at the extraction and processing stages.”

All this becomes even more relevant when taking into account global demand for lithium to manufacture

However, she says it is also necessary “to be clear that deploying this plan will require significant investments to ensure the effectiveness of the measures taken”.

The European Commission’s Critical Raw Materials Act defined this year, for the first time, a list of strategic raw materials vital to powering the bloc’s green tech agenda, including domestic battery manufacturing for EVs and energy storage systems.

The Commission has said that by 2030, Europe should not be dependent on any single third country for more than 65% of its supply of any strategic raw material, unprocessed and at any stage of processing.