July 1, 2021: BEPA, the Batteries European Partnership Association, on June 23 signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Commission to launch a €925 million ($1.1 billion) programme aiming to develop a ‘competitive and sustainable industrial battery value chain’.

BATT4EU will be run under Horizon Europe, a research and innovation framework that comes under the European Union. This will provide the funding that will go towards ‘research and innovation to develop a variety of differentiated technologies that will result in a competitive, sustainable and circular European battery value chain’.

The EU recognizes it has fallen behind Asia in the global battery race. Some analysts say Europe is around a decade behind the top Asian players.

“The demand for batteries is continuously growing, however, the production of batteries is still highly concentrated in Asia: for instance, less than 1% of global lithium-ion battery cells are currently manufactured in Europe, compared to over 90% in Asia,” the announcement says.

“Europe needs to catch up in this important area and it will do so by putting environmental sustainability and circularity at the heart of its battery production to address the ambitions of the green energy transition.

“By mobilizing €925 million, the partnership will boost research and innovation to develop a variety of differentiated technologies that will result in a competitive, sustainable and circular European battery value chain.”