This summer marks a turning point for battery manufacturers in the European Union and beyond.
With the new EU Battery Regulation, the European Commission is paving the way for a sustainable battery industry. In particular, the total carbon footprint of each battery will first have to be declared, and then those whose footprint exceeds a certain threshold will not be allowed on the European market. The method used to calculate this carbon footprint, developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Commission, is also decisive, as it must be universally applicable and indisputable to prevent abuse.
The JRC published a first draft on 31 January 2023, and organised a stakeholder consultation on this document.
In a note dated 14 April 2023, experts from the CEA and BRGM expressed their concerns about the method and its implementation, which they considered to be unnecessarily complex and not up to the challenge of encouraging the production of low-carbon batteries.
The "final draft" published by the JRC in June 2023 contains some improvements, but the main problems remain. The initial recommendations, which remain essentially valid, concern several points.
Despite some progress made on the January version, the experts believe that a number of points need to be reviewed in order to arrive at a calculation that will honour batteries with a low carbon footprint, strictly ruling out those that need to be.
You can read all the CEA and BRGM recommendations here.