EU battery regulations: what do the new rules mean?

The European Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives approved in 2020, aims for a sustainable and competitive economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Along with the legislation driving this transition, such as the Energy Efficiency Directive recast (see EED comes into force, creating an enormous task for the industry), the strategy will require much higher rates of electrification in transport and industries to displace the use of fossil fuels. This aim is combined with the policy objective of adding large amounts of renewable power generation capacity.

However, this direction is leading toward a new environmental challenge: increased sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will create future end-of-life battery problems, drawing attention to the unresolved issue of reusing and recycling large battery banks. Many industrial stationary applications are also seeing a strong take-up of EV-type (mostly lithium-ion) batteries for a variety of reasons. These include the displacement of valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries, which are highly recycled, new energy storage installations for grid demand-response schemes and the elimination of standby engine generators.