Batteries are critical to strengthening the U.S. grid, powering American homes and businesses, and supporting the electrification of the transportation sector. Administered by DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), the selected projects will retrofit, expand, and build new domestic facilities for battery-grade processed critical minerals, battery components, battery manufacturing, and recycling.
Boosting a Domestic Battery Supply Chain
Through grants and loans, DOE is developing a diversified portfolio of projects that help deliver a durable and secure battery manufacturing supply chain for the American people. Through MESC, the Investing in America agenda will generate $16 billion in total investment for battery manufacturing and recycling through the Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing and Recycling Program. Using market, economic and supply chain security-related technical analysis, MESC collaborates with experts to identify gaps and growth opportunities across the nation's energy supply chains, from raw materials to processing and manufacturing. These analyses inform investment and program implementation. This announcement of round two selections builds on this progress and aims to further address existing and future supply chain challenges. The selected projects span strategic segments across the supply chain, building and expanding commercial-scale facilities to extract and recycle critical minerals including lithium, graphite, and manganese, as well as manufacture components. These components represent the most essential building blocks of the battery supply chain, like electrolyte salts, solid state electrolytes, polymers for separators, cathode and anode materials, that are critical to onshore a robust and reliable energy supply chain. The selected projects also cover traditional and next-generation lithium-ion chemistries, as well as non-lithium-ion technologies, to ensure that the U.S. has a diverse portfolio of domestic battery technologies that can strengthen our overall energy security.
Learn more about the projects selected for award negotiations here.
Creating Good-Paying Jobs Across the U.S. Battery Sector
Of the 25 projects selected, more than half have committed to or already have signed a Project Labor Agreement commitment and 10 have an agreement with labor or a neutrality pledge. Union partners represented across selected projects include NABTU (North America’s Building Trades Unions), Boilermakers, SMART International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART), Carpenters, Operating Engineers, UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers International Union), IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) and the UA (United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada).
Nearly 90% of selectees are located in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities, advancing President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which sets the goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in climate, clean energy, clean transportation, and other areas flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE will complete environmental review. DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.