Lithium‐ion battery cell production in Europe: Scenarios for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions until 2030

Florian Degen

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2023, vol. 27, issue 3, 964-976

Abstract: The market for electric vehicles is growing rapidly, and there is a large demand for lithium‐ion batteries (LIB). Studies have predicted a growth of 600% in LIB demand by 2030. However, the production of LIBs is energy intensive, thus contradicting the goal set by Europe to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and become GHG emission free by 2040. Therefore, in this study, it was analyzed how the energy consumption and corresponding GHG emissions from LIB cell production may develop until 2030. Economic, technological, and political measures were considered and applied to market forecasts and to a model of a state‐of‐the art LIB cell factory. Notably, different scenarios with trend assumptions and above/below‐trend assumptions were considered. It could be deduced that, if no measures are taken and if the status quo is extrapolated to the future, by 2030, ∼5.86 Mt CO2‐eq will be emitted due to energy consumption from European LIB cell production. However, by applying a combination of economic, technological, and political measures, energy consumption and GHG emissions could be decreased by 46% and 56% by 2030, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that political measures, such as improving the electricity mix, are important but less dominant than improving the production technology and infrastructure. In this study, it could be deduced that, by 2030, through industrialization and application of novel production technologies, the energy consumption and GHG emissions from LIB cell production in Europe can be reduced by 24%.

Date: 2023
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