The battery industry is at risk of falling into the trap of becoming too dependent on a single ingredient.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) supplies most of the world’s cobalt, but exporting semi-finished or finished products rather than raw materials would better help the country capture the value of the metal used in high power lithium-ion batteries.

Global equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has supplied hybrid energy solutions technology including 7.5MW of battery storage to the microgrid powering a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).