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The European Union has invested a lot of money in European battery manufacturing and recycling projects, but so far it has not succeeded in resolving the key issue of raw materials lithium, graphite, cobalt, and manganese.
If the industry wants to become self-sufficient, European policymakers need to find a way to fill the gap in battery products.
Although the European Union is ambitious to establish a self-sufficient battery industry, more than seventy five percent of the materials needed to meet the needs of electric vehicles (EV) need to be imported. The European Union will usher in a “new era of energy dependence.
A data company, headquartered in Scotland and owned by Verisk, has processed the data to come up with some impressive data on the size of European battery production facilities being established or in the process of being established.
In 2008, Verisk Analytics was established as the parent company of ISO. In 2009, Verisk completed its IPO and became a listed company. Since 2000, the company has acquired about 40 new companies, which has helped expand its product range.
However, can Europe ensure that the battery industry is self-sufficient? A report issued by Woodhouse Mackenzie showed that lithium-ion equipment will continue to rely on key raw materials and will dominate the European energy storage market. This will ensure that EU industry is far from self-reliant in 2040.
Wood Mackenzie was established in 1923 as a small, relatively unknown stockbroker in Edinburgh. By the 1970s, they had become one of the three largest stockbrokers in the UK, known for the quality of their stock research.
The authors of the study pointed out that Europe is determined not to rely on batteries manufactured outside the EU, which has prompted the market to invest more in battery manufacturing in 2019 and 2020 than any other region in the world. WoodMac added that this year’s second important battery-related project designated by the European Common Interest has allocated 2.9 billion euros of EU funds to the industry, aiming to attract another 9 billion euros of private investors.
With the announcement of the 1.3TWh annual battery production capacity plan for the next ten years, Europe may have the world’s second largest battery manufacturing capacity in 2030, second only to China, accounting for twenty seven percent of the global market, twice the European Unions expected demand level. Woodhouse Mackenzie pointed out that this estimate is based on the fact that all announced European projects are taking shape, although only nine percent of them are already in production-forty two percent of the production lines are under construction, and the remaining forty nine percent are in early stages of development,
As the European Union promulgated a decree that all new cars in the EU must achieve zero emissions from 2035, electric vehicles will drive the demand for batteries in the European market. Woodhouse Mackenzie estimates that its value will reach 572 billion euros by 2030, and will reach 1.72 trillion euros in ten years.
However, these huge numbers do not solve the problem of raw material dependence, which seems to make European Union manufacturers as currently constrained by supply chains outside Europe.
Meanwhile
Northvolt launches Europe’s first “Gigafactory Era” Electric Vehicle battery.
The Swedish plant increases the production of lithium-ion batteries to profit from the growing demand for electric vehicles in Europe.
Electric cars have become mainstream in Europe – they accounted for almost one-fifth of all car purchases in the UK last month, but so far there is still one missing: European batteries.
Changes are now taking place. On Tuesday night, a start-up company Northvolt produced its first lithium-ion battery at a factory in northern Sweden. This is the first in a series of new factories where investors want Europe to have a place in the electric car market and weaken restrictions on manufacturers in China, Japan and South Korea.
The Northvolt Ett plant will be the first plant in Europe to produce on the so-called super factory scale. A super factory is generally considered to be a factory capable of producing enough batteries annually to provide a cumulative storage capacity of approximately 15 gigawatt hours (GWh).
According to battery data company Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI), there are only two large battery factories in operation in Europe: one in Wroclaw, Poland, operated by South Korea’s LG, and the other near Budapest, owned by South Korea’s Samsung, and Hungary.
However, according to BMI data, the continent plans to build 25 superfactories by 2030 as the industry rushes to keep up with rising demand for electric vehicles. Nine of them are owned by Asian manufacturers, who control most of the global supply.
The UK can be said to be further behind other European countries, and its plan is to build only two super factories. One of them will be the large-scale expansion of a small battery factory in Sunderland by the Chinese company Envision, while Glencore-backed startup Britishvolt is trying to secure funding for a local rival in nearby Blyth.
The local authorities in Coventry are trying to find the manufacturer of the third factory at the local airport, but no one has come forward so far-this situation casts a shadow on the prospects of the British auto industry, as it is trying to replace the declining car industry. Internal combustion engine industry.
Although in its infancy, Northvolt has secured heavyweight funding from Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, and Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. It raised US$2.75 billion (£2.1 billion) in June, with a valuation of US$12 billion.
Northvolt hopes to rapidly expand production at the Skellefteå plant in northern Sweden, producing 60 GWh per year-enough to provide batteries for 1 million electric vehicles. Commercial delivery will begin in the new year.
The startup has signed $30 billion worth of contracts with major European companies, including carmakers BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Polaris, truck manufacturer Scania, and energy storage company Fluence. In response to increasingly stringent emission targets and challenges from American rival Tesla, automakers have been slowly increasing the production of electric vehicles. Tesla has established its own battery and car factory in Berlin.
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