European Commission adds lithium to Critical Raw Materials list

By Andy Colthorpe
September 11, 2020
LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email
EC reports highlighted an overlap between the location battery raw materials resources in the EU and “regions that are heavily dependent on coal or carbon-intensive industries and where battery factories are planned”. Image: EC Joint Centre for Research.

Lithium has been added to a list of raw materials deemed essential to secure supply in Europe, for the first time ever, by the European Commission.

Earlier this month the Commission presented its Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials and a “foresight study” on critical raw materials looking ahead to 2030 and 2050, as well as its updated 2020 list of materials. This list is updated every three years and identifies the raw materials that the Commission said are “most important economically and have a high supply risk”.

A statement from the EC also talked about the importance of access to certain resources to deliver the European Green Deal while preventing the shift to carbon neutrality from becoming also a shift from dependency on fossil fuels to a dependency on raw materials. This week, Members of European Parliament spoke at a webinar hosted by European energy storage industry group EASE about the vital importance of energy storage for decarbonising the continent while also ensuring security of energy supply.

The EC’s documents likewise firmly emphasised the importance of battery raw materials. While cobalt is already on that list, and lithium was added this year, the EC said it will “monitor nickel closely,” given the metal’s importance in battery production. Vanadium, used in flow batteries – as well as in steel production – is also on the 2020 list.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

“A secure and sustainable supply of raw materials is a prerequisite for a resilient economy. For e-car batteries and energy storage alone, Europe will for instance need up to 18 times more lithium by 2030 and up to 60 times more by 2050,” said European Commission politician Maroš Šefčovič, who has championed the need to create battery supply chains and manufacturing capabilities in the continent.

“As our foresight shows, we cannot allow to replace current reliance on fossil fuels with dependency on critical raw materials. This has been magnified by the coronavirus disruptions in our strategic value chains.”

Šefčovič, the EC’s Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, was instrumental in the creation of the European Battery Alliance, which has committed to investing billions of Euros into the manufacturing value chain on the continent over the next few years.

One of the projects to benefit from that Alliance, start-up Northvolt’s first gigafactory in Sweden, received its first processing equipment a few days ago, the company said. Now, the European Commission is set to formulate a similar Alliance for Critical Raw Materials.

Read the EC’s Foresight Study here.

11 November 2025
San Diego, USA
The 2024 Summit included innovative new features including a ‘Crash Course in Battery Asset Management’, Ask-Me-Anything formats and debate-style sessions. You can expect to meet and network with all the key industry players again in 2025 from major US asset owners, operators, RTOs and ISOs, optimizers, software and analytics providers, technical consultancies, O&M technology providers and more.

Read Next

October 16, 2025
Octopus Australia has acquired the Coleambally battery energy storage system (BESS), a 100MW/400MWh standalone project in development located in southern New South Wales.
October 15, 2025
A flurry of grid-scale BESS project progress totalling more than a combined 1.5GWh in the past week, from Renalfa in Bulgaria, Engie in Romania, Nala Renewables in Finland and Metlen in Greece.
October 15, 2025
Takeaways from the first day of Energy Storage Summit Latin America 2025, including the Chilean and Argentinian markets.
October 15, 2025
Publicly-owned energy company CleanCo Queensland’s 250MW/500MWh Swanbank battery energy storage system (BESS) has officially registered with AEMO and commenced its testing and commissioning phase.
October 14, 2025
IPP Eolian has closed a US$463 million financing package to support the continued construction of Padua 2 and Padua 3, two battery energy storage systems (BESS) totalling 350MW/1.7GWh in Bexar County, Texas.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter