The New Mobility Congress is one of the largest events in the Central and Eastern European region bringing zero-emission transport technology and sustainable mobility stakeholders together. This year’s edition took place from 24 to 26 September 2024 in Lodz, Poland. BatteReverse organised a panel discussion made up of EV battery reverse logistics stakeholders and experts on 26 September called ‘Battery Reverse Logistics – Are We Ready ForThis Inverted Supply Chain?’. Moderated by Claudia Patricolo, Editor-in-Chief of CEEENERGYNEWS, the session focused on how battery recycling, battery repurposing and the battery passport contribute to the EU circular economy.
Piotr Dytko is a Member of the Board at the Wastes Service Group, which is involved in battery recycling. He painted a picture of the advanced automotive technologies available in China, but emphasised that the EU can still catch up, especially in battery recycling. Since there are no industrial-scale pyrometallurgical recycling facilities in Poland, more support is needed from the EU to enable investments in this area. Additionally, the circular economy is not just about recycling but also reuse. The word ‘reuse’ was mentioned over a dozen times in the 2023 EU Batteries Regulation, which shows the EU’s commitment to optimising the value of batteries by giving them a second life.
Andrzej Kublik is the CEO of QSense, a battery dismantler that works closely with recyclers. He said that his company has been working on battery discharging for over five years. They discharge tonnes of batteries of various types and sizes every month and their biggest challenge is the lack of standards and the lack of clear regulations to guide them. For example, they often need to negotiate with transport companies about what procedures to follow in order to quickly load and unload batteries. Having proper battery testing and safety procedures are very important because if the batteries are not treated properly, it could be very dangerous for those handling them.
Witold Statkiewicz is a Senior Business Process Analystat Łukasiewicz– Poznań Institute of Technology, a Polish research organisation. His group contributes to the BatteReverse project by improving the business processes in the battery reverse logistics value chain. He emphasised that having reliable real-time data would lead to a higher level of safety for different organisations, operations and teams. Furthermore, echoing Andrzej Kublik´s call for regulations on standardisation, he believes that standardising data across the value chain will bring profitability to stakeholders.
Andreas Schneider is an Associate at Systemiq, a system change company that leads the Battery Pass project. He highlighted the technical guide that Battery Pass has recently published, which presents the challenges, standards and recommendations for a battery passport system. Findings show that battery passports could lead to 10-20% reduction in operational recycling costs, 2-10% reduction of technical testing costs and 5-20% increase in secondary material usage in European passenger vehicles. Despite this, there are challenges in implementing the battery passport because companies still don’t know the cost or effort needed to implement it. Large companies might already be collecting and storing battery data but SMEs might just be starting. While he agrees that China is ahead in EV and battery technology, he believes that the EU advantage is that there are already many projects and initiatives that are working to comply with EU regulations in terms of what interfaces or kinds data of are needed. Other countries may not be at that stage yet.
