PVTIME – The European Commission has unveiled 46 newly designated strategic raw material projects, designed to reinforce the resilience of Europe’s domestic battery storage supply chain.
Selected from 102 applications submitted under the Critical Raw Materials Act framework, these initiatives span 16 EU member states and cover extraction, processing and recycling workflows across the raw material value chain. Several projects focus on lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite, core materials for manufacturing grid-scale and vehicle battery storage systems, thereby supporting the bloc’s ambition to reduce its reliance on overseas supplies for energy transition hardware.
The CRMA’s 2030 supply benchmarks are 10% domestic extraction, 40% domestic processing and 25% recycling of strategic raw materials consumed within the EU. The full 46-project roster comprises eight extraction-focused schemes, 11 processing ventures, 19 recycling-oriented projects and eight cross-stage integrated developments, covering 15 out of 17 materials listed as strategic under the regulation.
The designation grants privileged regulatory treatment to accelerate permitting and rollout. Combined with earlier-approved strategic projects, these measures will strengthen regional self-sufficiency for storage-battery components amid the fast-growing deployment of energy storage in Europe. No individual project funding allocations have been released in this press announcement.
