The Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt wants to recycle old batteries with a new system in Hamburg. These come from discarded electric vehicles.
The need for batteries is likely to continue to increase in the coming years. Because more and more new vehicles have an electric motor. At the same time, energy storage is required to maintain grid stability.
Surveys predict demand of over 718 gigawatt hours in 2023. By 2030, this value is expected to rise to 3,127 gigawatt hours. But the ever-increasing demand also results in more and more waste products. The recycling of old batteries is therefore becoming increasingly important. The Swedish company Northvolt, among others, has specialized in this.
Northvolt opens new recycling factory in Hamburg Billbrook
On August 24th, Northvolt opened a new factory for recycling discarded batteries in the Billbrook district of Hamburg. In the future, the company would like to split batteries from electric vehicles and recover important raw materials on a 12,000 square meter area.
Because the production of new batteries is becoming increasingly expensive. This is because essential raw materials such as rare earths mostly come from China and the supply is therefore limited. The so-called black mass is created during recycling. This is a mixture that contains important raw materials such as lithium and cobalt.
New battery factory in Schleswig-Holstein
Northvolt has definitely recognized the potential of recycling. Battery waste is used to create new raw materials for our own battery cell production. The new plant in Hamburg complements existing plants such as those in Norway. But in the long term, Northvolt would like to invest even more money in the Federal Republic.
A new battery factory is expected to be built in Schleswig-Holstein by 2025. The system is called “Northvolt Drei” and ideally achieves an output of 60 gigawatt hours. This is likely to create new opportunities, especially for the automotive industry. The more suppliers settle in this country, the more secure the supply of appropriate components is.
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Source: https://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2023/08/28/northvolt-hamburg/
