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EU green light for US$3.5 billion pan-European battery project EU competition regulators on Tuesday approved a 2.9-billion-euro (US$3.5 billion) battery project funded by Germany, France, Italy and nine other EU countries, responding to the growing demand for car and industrial batteries in the 27-country bloc.
FILE PHOTO: Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, speaks at a news conference on the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium December 15, 2020. Olivier Matthys/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Stellantis, Tesla among automakers to receive European aid for battery innovation
The European Union s executive body on Tuesday approved $3.5 billion in state aid to support the European Battery Innovation project supporting work at a few dozen automakers, including Stellantis NV and Tesla Inc.
The funds from 12 member countries will support developments in every step of the battery ecosystem from raw material extraction to design and manufacturing to recycling and disposal, according to the European Commission. It expects the effort will raise another $11 billion in private investment. We will not recover from this crisis by rebuilding the world, as we knew it before the pandemic, the commission s executive vice president, Margrethe Vestager, said in a prepared statement. We now have the historic chance to build a greener, more digital and resilient Europe. To tackle climate change, we have to transform how we power our world, how we heat our homes and how we travel and m
Published: 15 Dec 2020, 14:44
By:
Andy Colthorpe
Greece s Deputy Minister of Development and Investments Yannis Tsakiris (top left) with Sunlight CEO Lampros Bisalas (bottom). Image: SUNLIGHT.
A €105 million (US$127.6 million) push to develop low-cost, environmentally-friendly lithium-ion battery technology by Sunlight, a designer and manufacturer of batteries headquartered in Greece, will receive €49.9 million in grant funding.
Sunlight’s plan has been deemed an ‘Important Project of Common European Interest’ (IPCEI) under the European Union’s European Battery Innovation (EuBatIn) proposal, and the company has been approved to receive state aid from the Greek government under that categorisation. Germany’s Varta also received funding from its home government in July to pilot the production of large-format lithium-ion cells with €300 million in support to transfer the company s existing lithium-ion technologies to the new format as an IPCEI.