Biden Executive Order will put battery materials at heart of US climate technology leadership

The new Biden administration has in one of the first Executive Orders “identified the importance of mitigating risks in the supply chain for large capacity batteries”. This underlines the importance of the strategy applied from the European Battery Alliance from day one to address the entire value chain for batteries. The ongoing pandemic has only underscored the strategic importance to build alternative supply chains. It is notable that the US administration has recognised the activities in Europe and this is a key motivator for the Executive Order.

Quote from the text: “Over the last couple of years, the European Union has moved quickly to establish battery supply chains outside of Asia, where the vast majority of the world’s production is, most notably in China. In addition to establishing a multi-billion Euro drive to set up battery factories — there are more than 20 multi-gigawatt lithium battery factories being built on the continent — the European Commission in September added battery materials including lithium to a list of raw materials deemed essential to secure supply of domestically.”

This announcement is aligned and references again the formation of the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) as part of the DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a report issued in December 2020. One area of focus of the Grand Challenge identified in the report is the Manufacturing and Supply Chain Track (M&SC) which is very much in line with EBA250.

An additional activity will coordinate R&D investments across DOE to help domestic researchers and manufacturers innovate reduce manufacturing cost and overcome the shared technical barriers in production and manufacturing much in line what has been done in Europe with the Batteries 2030+ and Batteries Europe programmes. The overall goal of the FCAB is to establish a domestic battery manufacturing ecosystem.

This is a clear recognition that Europe has taken the lead in developing strategically clear alternatives to the current imbalance in the global battery ecosystem.

Read the full article on Energy-Storage.News.