Batteries in the spotlight for UK Government
Funding for battery recycling plant, gigafactory and simpler street charger permissions process.
Altilium has secured £18.5mln to scale electric vehicle (EV) battery recycling and build UK’s first commercial facility for recovery of critical minerals.
The money comes in grant funding through the UK Government’s DRIVE35 Scale-Up Fund, delivered by the Department for Business and Trade in partnership with the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC) and Innovate UK.
The funding will support the construction of Altilium’s new ACT3 recycling facility in Plymouth, Devon.
The plant will have capacity to process 24,000 EV batteries per year, producing high-value battery intermediates, including nickel mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), lithium sulphate and graphite.
Construction of the facility is expected to commence in summer 2026, with commissioning planned for the end of 2027.
The government is also providing a £380mln grant towards building the £4bln Agratas car battery gigafactory in Somerset. This will enable better cell production for clients such as JLR.
The site marked the topping out of the steel structure for Building One at the Bridgwater site on the 19 March. Building One will become the largest battery manufacturing facility in the UK says the company.
Meanwhile progress is being made to reduce bureaucracy around public EV charge point installation in a bid to drive down costs.
Through the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and amendments to the Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007, operators will no longer have to undertake applications for section 50 licences to install chargers, and instead will be able to apply for street works permits.
Under the new system, operators can apply for a street works permit through Street Manager – the digital service used by all highway authorities and utility companies in England.
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