Northvolt and Norsk Hydro open Europe’s largest battery recycling plant in Norway

It is the largest battery recycling plant in Europe. Operations at the plant have already begun

Swedish battery technology developer Northvolt and Norsk Hydro opened their first battery recycling plant in Norway to relocate their Hydrovolt joint venture to continental Europe later this year.

It is the largest battery recycling plant in Europe. Operations at the plant have already begun.

Currently, the facility can service about 25,000 batteries for electric cars per year, equivalent to the total number of cells reaching the end of its life in Norway, a pioneer of electric vehicles.

“We want to move to Europe and we will make decisions this year. It is important for us to build trust in the recycling of electric car batteries, it is important that used batteries do not travel across Europe, “Arvid Moss, head of Hydro Energy, told the Financial Times.

Hydrovolt is aimed at recycling 150,000 car batteries a year by 2025 and half a million by 2030 and is searching for locations in Europe’s largest car markets such as Germany and France. He will choose the location of the plant later this year and start work by about 2024.

Northvolt is the first European battery manufacturer open a gigafactory in the far north of Sweden and aims to open two more in the coming years, one in partnership with Volvo Cars close to the automaker’s base in Gothenburg and one in Germany.

Hydro, one of the world’s largest producers of aluminum, will return the metal from the joint venture back to production, using only 5% of the energy used to produce primary aluminum.

Northvolt takes black mass, powder containing nickel, manganese, cobalt and lithium, and other materials such as plastics and copper, recovering 95 percent of the battery’s materials. It aims to use 50 percent recycled material in battery production by the end of the decade.

Northvolt also has its own Revolt recycling program, based in each of its plants, and expects to provide about half of the material for its 2030 target and Hydrovolt the other half.

Demand for battery recycling is expected to grow dramatically as regulators require carmakers to dispose of them safely at the end of their lives. Hydrovolt expects significantly higher competition, but hopes its first engine status will help it with carmakers, insurance companies and regulators.

Northvolt, who originally expected to focus only on Europe, is now striving to do so expansion in the United States but Moss and Nerenheim said there were no specific plans to move Hydrovolt there. “We want to industrialize in Europe first. On the other hand, the United States is becoming an increasingly interesting market, “said Emma Nerenheim, Northvolt’s chief environmental officer.