DOE battery consortium targets 2030 domestic supply chain

The Energy Department's Battery Manufacturing Accelerator will work toward a domestic mine-to-market battery supply chain by 2030. It will target the material and component gaps that the department says remain after years of investment in U.S. cell and pack plants.

The accelerator, called BattMan, is led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and will target precursor-component gaps. Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Laboratory of the Rockies, formerly the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, are also partners. University partners include the University of Alabama, Arizona State University, Binghamton University, the University of Michigan–Dearborn and the University of Washington. DOE's Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation supports the work. Utility Dive reported on the white paper, "A National Strategy for American Leadership in Batteries."

For allocators, the gap is upstream of the plants that have already been financed: DOE says U.S. cell and pack manufacturing has drawn investment while U.S. production of precursor components has not. The white paper locates the vulnerability in cathode, anode, separator and electrolyte capacity. China and other Asian countries host nearly all global lithium-ion cathode, anode and separator manufacturing and nearly 93% of electrolyte manufacturing, DOE said in 2024.

"China currently controls between 60% and 100% of global production capacity across several critical stages of battery materials and component manufacturing," Robertson said in an email to Utility Dive. The U.S. is heavily dependent on external trade partners, particularly China, for battery materials and components, which "poses substantial supply chain risks," DOE said in the paper.

Data centers could account for one-quarter of total U.S. battery demand by 2030, according to a Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecast cited in the paper. Total U.S. battery demand is set to quadruple over the next few years, DOE said. Batteries are also increasingly indispensable to utilities for grid reliability and shifting load, the paper says, particularly where data-center loads threaten power flows. As Private Wealth Daily previously reported, Benchmark's outlook counts 134 new lithium mines and $100 billion of investment by 2050.