Tees Valley Lithium has received first phase approval for an application to the government’s £1 billion Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF).
The ATF aims to support large-scale industrialisation in the transition to electric vehicles and will invest up to £1 billion to develop a end-to-end electrified automotive supply chain in the UK. It is an initiative of the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK.
TVL says its ‘zero waste’ lithium hydroxide refinery will produce enough lithium hydroxide to supply all of the forecasted automotive demand in the UK by 2030.The project has been granted planning permission from Redcar & Cleveland Borough council for a 9.6Ha site at the Wilton International Chemicals Park in Teesside, a UK Freeport.
The proposed lithium hydroxide refinery will process feedstock imported from various sources to produce 96,000 t/yr of lithium hydroxide, representing around 15% of Europe’s projected demand.
It aims to begin production in 2025. By sourcing low-carbon feedstock and powering an electrochemical refining process with offshore wind and green hydrogen supplied by energy multinational BP’s HyGreen Teesside project, TVL says it will supply UK and European customers with the world’s lowest-carbon lithium hydroxide.
TVL is owned by Alkemy Capital Investments.
The approval comes shortly after UK battery manufacturer BritishVolt collapsed into administration. Responding to the BritishVolt collapse Julian Hetherington, Automotive Transformation Director, said: “It is no secret that gigafactories require substantial investment and our insight suggests there is a huge opportunity in the UK associated with the electrification of cars alone, specifically with battery manufacturing.
Britishvolt have been operating in a challenging landscape. They have produced very credible ‘A’ Samples in volume and got them out to customers. They did that without grant funding, and have also leveraged the excellent UK university capability, and that vital piece of the UK’s ecosystem, UKBIC (UK Battery Industrialisation Centre). The UK environment can support these successes going forward. The technology developed is exciting, and we expect this to be of interest to the sector.
“Our forecasts show at least 90GWh of UK manufacturing demand by 2030, Nissan and Envision AESC has recently committed to creating 9GWh capacity, but clearly, we will need more.”