Erion Energy: “The recycling capacity of batteries and accumulators must increase by 25 times”

With a global demand for batteries the recycling capacity of Rpa (Waste batteries and accumulators) should increase by at least 25 times to meet the need for raw materials, especially the critical ones, necessary for their production. L’EU it is expected to occupy a growing share of the global market, rising from 17% to 26% by 2030.

It is photography that gives us research back “The European regulation on batteries and the challenges for the value chain”made for Erion Energythe Erion System Consortium dedicated to the management of Rpafrom Federico Magalini, director sustainability services UK & Italy of the consulting firm dss +. The study, presented on the occasion of Ecomondo 2022examines the context in which the new regulation is introduced, analyzing the provisions that the various players in the battery supply chain will have to comply with.

The road transport together with the development of energy storage systems from renewable sources, will be the main sector for increasing the demand for batteries: it is estimated, in fact, that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (Phev) and battery electric vehicles (Bev) will exceed sales of cars with internal combustion engines, with an estimated annual growth of 23% in both categories until 2030. For this reason, the European Union has set itself the goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of batteries for electric vehicles by 2025.

To cope with the exponential growth of requests, the real challenge to be overcome, however, is that of raw material: L’EUat the moment, it produces only 1% of those necessary for the manufacture of batteries, hence the urgency to create an internal market that reduces the risk of dependence on foreign countries (30 critical materials have been identified due to the combination of high levels of demand and supply risks associated with their origin and therefore subject to availability constraints and rapid cost increases).

For this reason, the proposal of the draft of the new regulation, adopted by European Parliament on 10 March 2022, it introduces rules that regulate the entire life cycle of batteries and aims to incentivize the transition from the current linear model to a circular system. In fact, with 2,500,000 tons placed on the market every year and with a similar quantity of waste produced, theItaly and theEurope have not yet reached full circularity, registering a return rate of less than 45% (Italy, in 2021, settled at 30% for the collection of exhausted portable batteries, and 40% for that of vehicle battery waste and industrial batteries).

Among the objectives of the new regulation there is also that of limit the negative social and environmental impacts of the battery life cycle, setting minimum levels of mandatory recycled content for the production of new batteries. Recycling lead-acid batteries, for example, can reduce impacts by 49% compared to primary supply; recycled aluminum has a CO2 footprint that is 96% lower than that of primary, while for lithium, nickel and cobalt the reduction is 38%. Battery life cycle studies have shown that end-of-life treatment represents only a small part (less than 5%) of the total impacts of production and that it can substantially limit the environmental consequences compared to primary production.

“The many challenges that we will face do not scare us, on the contrary they encourage us to support our producers more and more, to help them adopt the numerous requirements introduced by the regulation and to facilitate their communication with the other players in the system (for example , treatment plants). In particular, as a Consortium we will be called to reach new and more ambitious collection targets by 2030: 70% for portable batteries and 54% for batteries for light transport vehicles (Lmt) “, he declared. Laura Castelli, managing director of Erion Energy. “The new Regulation promotes a much more strategic and sustainable approach in the management of batteries and related resource flows, regulating, with a single legal instrument, the entire life cycle and guaranteeing homogeneity in the internal market in Europe”, concluded Castles.