4 JUNE 2024, TEESSIDE
Currently, the majority of the world’s lithium is refined in China. The UK’s and EU’s reliance on international sources of refined lithium chemical imports is creating uncertainty over security of supply, price, and volume. These factors underline the reasons why the UK Government made lithium a key part of its Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022 and Critical Minerals Refresh in 2023.
Improving lithium refining processing also represents a significant opportunity to decarbonise the European battery and electric vehicle (EV) supply chains. Utilising hydrogen as a feedstock gas will be key to unlocking this decarbonisation potential. Crucially, current operators use fossil fuels in the form of coal or natural gas to fuel their refineries and, as a result, they emit large volumes of carbon dioxide which contributes significantly to the overall carbon embedded within an EV.
Replacing fossil fuels with green hydrogen is part of Green Lithium’s carbon reduction strategy for its Teesside refinery. Overall, this has the potential to reduce emission levels by 75% compared to refineries outside of the UK.
The Teesside refinery will provide annual production of over 50,000 tonnes of low-carbon, battery-grade lithium chemicals that will help meet Europe’s growing demand. The forecast level of annual production will enable the production of over 1 million EVs in a European market forecasted to produce over 15 million by 2030.
EDF Renewables UK and Hynamics (part of EDF Group) are currently securing funding from the UK Government’s Net Zero Hydrogen Fund (NZHF) for its North East-based Tees Green Hydrogen project. The Net Zero Hydrogen Fund is overseen by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero and aims to support the commercial deployment of hydrogen production projects across the UK as part of the UK Government’s wider decarbonisation strategy.
The Tees Green Hydrogen project will provide a boost to local industry and transport in Teesside by supplying green hydrogen to support decarbonisation efforts and achieve a significant reduction in industrial pollution, securing its long-term sustainability.
“Operating our refinery in Teesside using the reliable supply of hydrogen from EDF’s Tees Green Hydrogen project will be good for Green Lithium, good for EDF in the UK, and good for Teesside. This is also a significant step in being able to offer our customers lithium chemicals at 25% of the CO2 footprint of those produced by Chinese operators.
We are thrilled to support the Tees Green Hydrogen project and we look forward to progressing our plans for hydrogen supply with one of the UK’s major energy companies.”