North American lithium-ion battery recycling specialist Li-Cycle has seen a significant increase in battery energy storage system (BESS) materials in its feedstock.
A few weeks ago, a battery recycling deal was announced for a 640MWh BESS project in Australia, but the project isn’t even built yet and the cells have 25-year warranties – we caught up with the company recycling the batteries to hear more.
Speaking with Energy-Storage.news, North American lithium-ion battery recycling specialist Li-Cycle said that battery recycling will help the US become less reliant on foreign imports and “help bolster energy independence and national security.”
Battery recycling firm Livium, via its wholly owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has partnered with Chinese battery manufacturer Hithium Energy to recycle lithium-ion batteries from Lightsource bp’s Woolooga solar-plus-storage site in Queensland.
Li-Cycle has finalised a loan of nearly half a million dollars to with the DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) scale up its battery recycling facilities in the US, with the near-term direction of the LPO under a Trump administration likely to change.
Automotive group Mercedes-Benz has inaugurated what it claimed is the first integrated hydrometallurgical facility in Europe for battery recycling in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Augmentation and end-of-life disposal look set to grow in significance in the next few years in the US, with nearly 1.5GW/3GWh of BESS projects now four years old or more.
While contractual parties are rarely ironing out end-of-life provisions for BESS, those that do are keeping their options open with the future value of degraded batteries far from clear, a UK-based lawyer said.
Green Li-ion, a Singapore-headquartered startup, has put into operation what it claims is the first recycling facility in North America to turn black mass directly into precursor cathode active material (pCAM).