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Europe plans “EU Battery Alliance” to establish full large-scale battery development and production; strategic plan next year

The European Union is beginning efforts to establish a full value chain of advanced batteries in Europe, with large-scale Li-ion battery cell production, and the circular economy, at the core. European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, who is in charge of the Energy Union, organized a high-level meeting on battery development and production in Europe this past Wednesday in Brussels.

The meeting pulled together stakeholders from European industry—including automotive OEMs, chemical companies, energy companies and battery cell manufacturing companies—and member states to discuss the establishment of such a full value chain of batteries in Europe. The meeting agreed that large-scale manufacturing of Li-ion cells with highest possible control of intellectual property (IP) is crucial for EU economy and job creation for the future.

As was recalled by the actors in our meeting, we are at a critical juncture. The lack of a domestic, European cell manufacturing base jeopardizes the position of EU industrial customers because of the security of the supply chain, increased costs due to transportation, time delays, weaker quality control or limitations on the design. So, we need to act fast—and collectively—to overcome this competitive disadvantage and capitalize on our leadership in many sectors of the battery value chain, from materials to system integration and recycling.

Due to the level and urgency of investment needed, this cannot be done in a fragmented manner. It needs a Europe-wide approach. Members of the EU industry and innovation community will drive this process, working in close partnership with the European Commission, the European Investment Bank and interested Member States, to establish a competitive manufacturing chain, capture sizeable markets and boost jobs, growth and investment across Europe.

Since time is running out, we concluded that we will join our efforts to come up with a strategic plan early next year. This could take the form of a comprehensive roadmap for an EU Battery Alliance, to be presented in February 2018, at the Clean Energy Industrial Forum, as part of the EU Industry Days.

The work starts immediately. Following today’s high-level meeting, we will organize a number of working groups, including on the supply chain, investment financing and engineering, trade issues, research and innovation, and others. Industrial participants will take the lead, express interest to participate in or even be rapporteur for each work strand.

—Maroš Šefčovič

Comments

HarveyD

It's about time EU get their act together and increase support for batteries (and FCs) accelerated development and much lower cost mass production for future electrified vehicles and for REs fixed e-storage.

EU has 10+ years to catch up.

Otherwise Asia and USA will be too far ahead and will have cornered the market.

Fasteddie

Sensible, although it may raise some hackles in Washington. HOPEFULLY, it will raise some hair on the back of Washington's collective neck and get it moving in a similar direction. Tesla has achieved there first goal of showing that over 95% of personal vehicle needs can be met with clean, battery-electric vehicles. As of this week, we can also see that this fake news story from China is actually TRUE!!

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/942e85d78e3f704b2cd7b3e4bf62d4851fd6c9176c524034c9ce9388c95bf077.jpg

William Stockwell

Trump is going to get the jump on everyone with a coal powered steam car, it's going to shake things up bigly.

HarveyD

Trump may turn Coal into clean H2?

SJC

Coal has too much carbon for H2 but we can make liquid hydrocarbon fuel from it and sequester the remaining carbon.

mahonj

The worry with a big consortium like this is that it will become very bureaucratic and slow and waste loads of taxpayer's money.
Or, it could become like airbus, which I suppose is that they are hoping for.

Jeffgreen54

Trump is going to get the jump on everyone with a coal powered steam car, it's going to shake things up bigly.

Posted by: William Stockwell | October 13, 2017 at 08:13 PM


I actually thought you were joking in that was such a backwards look at things.

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