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Forecasts – background and methodology

Latest update: 25th May, 2025

How Circular Energy Storage models the global battery market, including the key parameters influencing demand and supply, and the research methodology underpinning our data and projections.

ABOUT OUR FORECASTS

The data and analysis behind CES' forecasts

Circular Energy Storage provides four interconnected forecast models designed to support users in understanding key dynamics across the battery value chain:

Battery Demand

This forecast addresses the total demand for batteries, encompassing both new and used batteries across all applications. Since second-life batteries are often sold in the same markets as new batteries, they are included in the same model. Although CES does not currently provide detailed forecasts for upstream battery materials (e.g. precursors, cathodes), the battery demand model directly informs expectations for both virgin and recycled material consumption.

Battery Production

The production forecast tracks battery manufacturing facilities globally, including Geographic location, Installed and planned production capacity as well as cell formats and chemistries. This data is used to project actual output levels by facility and chemistry type. The production model also serves as a basis for estimating production scrap, which is included in the supply-side analysis of battery waste and recycling potential.

Supply of Used Batteries

Using CES’s lifecycle datasets and segment-specific lifetime assumptions, this forecast projects the volume of batteries reaching end-of-life in each application area. It also estimates the share of these batteries that may be reused, either in the same application or in second-life use cases. The reuse potential is based on ongoing analysis of degradation patterns, product design, and market conditions.

Supply of Battery Scrap

The scrap supply forecast combines the volumes of End-of-life batteries that are projected as unsuitable for reuse and the production scrap from cell and pack manufacturingThese volumes are further broken down by chemistry, format, and regional origin where possible. The resulting data feeds into our forecasts for intermediary waste products (e.g. black mass) and the availability of recyclable materials.

Each forecast is based on a consistent methodological framework, combining bottom-up data collection with top-down market analysis. The forecasts can already be matched without our capacity data for recycling and the price data for used batteries and battery materials. Separate forecasts for these areas are planned to be published in July 2025. The models are updated continuously, and historical projections are revised where verified data becomes available.

Update Cycle and Methodological Notes

CES began publishing battery demand and end-of-life forecasts in 2017, with battery production forecasts added in 2020. All forecast models are updated continuously as new product data, sales figures, and facility announcements become available. Forecast adjustments are made based on observed market developments, technical innovations, regulatory changes, and revised historical inputs.

Each model prioritizes high-resolution input data and transparent assumptions. Where estimates are necessary, they are clearly documented and based on supporting data from industry sources or historical benchmarks.

BATTERY DEMAND

Forecasting Battery Sales and Future Demand

What Fuels the Growing Demand for Batteries?

The global demand for lithium-ion batteries continues to rise, closely tied to the growth and evolution of the products and technologies they power. Since most batteries are integrated into the devices or equipment they serve, battery demand largely mirrors the demand for these applications.

Batteries may be replaced during the life of a product, and the applications themselves will eventually be retired, replaced, or phased out—sometimes due to technological advancements or changing regulatory landscapes.

This creates three key drivers of battery demand:

Growth in the applications where batteries are installed
Replacement of those applications over time
Replacement of batteries within existing applications

Application growth can be influenced by:

Technological innovation in the end products
Regulatory policies and sustainability goals
Demand in adjacent or dependent industries
Advances in battery technology—such as improved energy density or cost efficiency

Examples of Battery Demand Drivers by Application:

eVTOL aircraft and electric planes
Driven by technological breakthroughs and increased battery energy density.
Electric vehicles (EVs)
Stimulated by government incentives, stricter emissions regulations, and falling battery prices.
Utility-scale stationary storage
Fueled by the expansion of intermittent renewable energy sources and the need for grid stability.
Data center backup power
Increasingly important due to the rapid growth of AI and hyperscale data centers.

The Role of Used Batteries

Many of the same trends affecting new battery demand also apply to the secondary market. Used batteries are becoming a valuable resource, especially when they reduce costs or enable new applications previously seen as unfeasible.

However, used batteries are not immune to competition—if new batteries meet the same requirements more affordably or reliably, they may replace used ones in certain use cases.

Use Cases for Second-Life Batteries:

EV battery replacements
Used battery packs with low mileage are often sold at significantly lower prices than new or remanufactured packs, making replacements more accessible.
Power packs and mobile energy storage
Recovered cells or modules are repurposed into cost-effective backup power solutions.
Electric vehicle conversions
EV components, including batteries, are reused to convert internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles into electric cars—an opportunity embraced by both enthusiasts and specialized workshops.

Application Segments: How We Structure the Market

To better understand and analyze battery demand, Circular Energy Storage divides the market into ten key segments. These groupings reflect similarities in usage patterns, lifespans, and end-of-life behaviors:

Light Electric Vehicles
Heavy and Commercial Electric Vehicles
Stationary Energy Storage
Portable and Consumer Batteries
Personal Mobility Devices
Industrial Batteries
Backup Power Systems
Maritime Applications
Other Automotive
Other Transportation Modes

Data Collection and Analysis Methodology

Circular Energy Storage's demand analysis is built on two core data inputs:

Growth and replacement rates of battery-powered products and the batteries within them
Technical characteristics of batteries used in these applications (e.g. chemistry, size, weight, capacity)

Our methodology varies in granularity and certainty across segments, based on data availability and relative market importance.

Bottom-Up Approach in Electric Vehicles

In the electric vehicle segment, around 90% of our data is based on actual battery specifications and real-world vehicle sales in key markets. This "bottom-up" model provides highly detailed insights—such as battery chemistry, capacity, and weight—and is continuously updated with new vehicle model data.

Aggregated Analysis in Other Segments

In other market segments, we analyze common battery configurations and usage profiles, match them to verified sales data, and calculate averages to estimate total demand. These models are updated one to two times per year, or when significant developments occur—such as the emergence of new chemistries or applications.

Keeping the Data Relevant and Current

Our EV dataset is regularly updated as new models enter the market or as significant developments emerge. Once a year, we perform a broader update of our long-term projections, incorporating:

Verified historical sales figures
Shifts in policy or regulation
Emerging trends and disruptive technologies

Other segments follow a similar review process, adjusted based on the availability of new information or market signals.

BATTERY PRODUCTION

Forecasting Battery Production

Growth Drivers of Battery Production

Battery production is shaped by both market demand and the available manufacturing capacity. While historically demand outpaced supply recent years have seen a shift toward overcapacity, with manufacturers in some regions producing more than the market can absorb.

Despite this general oversupply, the battery market is not a typical commodity market. Most large-volume batteries, especially those used in electric vehicles (EVs), are developed and produced to meet specific technical requirements. As a result, supply-demand imbalances still occur at the segment level. Manufacturers may face shortages of specific cell types or chemistries, even while surplus inventory builds elsewhere.

This mismatch can lead to:

Delays in production for niche applications or smaller OEMs
Excess stock of batteries designed for discontinued or underperforming product lines
Regional disparities, where localized oversupply does not equate to global abundance

Public-sector incentives—such as grants, subsidized loans, or discounted land—have contributed to regional overcapacity, all over the world. Establishing and scaling local manufacturing also presents operational challenges. New plants, both those launched by Asian manufacturers abroad and plants set up by new local manufacturers in Europe and the United States have often faced delays, yield issues, and high production scrap rates. In some cases, these difficulties have pushed buyers back toward more established supply chains in Asia.

Relevance for Recycling and the Secondary Battery Market

Battery production directly impacts the end-of-life and aftermarket landscape, particularly through production scrap, which becomes an early and often high-volume source of recyclable material. The amount and type of this scrap can vary widely depending on:

The manufacturer’s production experience
The technology and processes used
The stage of the factory’s operational maturity

A robust local battery production base supports the broader midstream sector, including precursor and cathode manufacturers. However, if demand in these downstream industries is weak, it limits the market for recycled materials—posing challenges for recyclers, especially those reliant on supplying refined materials back into the battery value chain.

Battery production also influences the used battery market. Overstocked batteries—produced for applications that no longer exist or for products that underperformed—can enter the secondary market, competing with both new and used batteries and altering price dynamics.

Data Collection and Analysis Methodology

Since 2020, Circular Energy Storage has maintained a comprehensive, continuously updated database of operational and planned battery factories worldwide. This includes details on:

Plant locations and production capacity
Cell formats and chemistries
Production timelines and expansion phases

Data is collected and verified through open sources, including:

Company annual reports and sustainability disclosures
Investor presentations
Public announcements and regulatory filings
Direct communication with manufacturers and OEMs

This production data is then aligned with CES’s battery demand forecasts, particularly in the automotive sector, which is expected to account for around 75% of total battery demand over time. By mapping battery production to specific car models and supply agreements, we gain a granular view of regional production trends and future availability.

Production inefficiencies—such as scrap rates—are also modeled at the plant level. These estimates are based on:

Interviews with battery production experts
Disclosures from manufacturers
Publicly available investor materials

By combining capacity analysis with production waste modelling, CES forecasts both the volume of batteries entering the market and the scrap generated during production—providing key insights for stakeholders across the value chain.

SUPPLY OF USED BATTERIES

Forecasting the Supply of Used Batteries

Understanding how used batteries become available

The availability of used batteries is primarily determined by historical and current battery sales in a given region. However, the supply is also shaped by how frequently batteries are replaced within their applications, and by how often the applications themselves are decommissioned or replaced.

In most cases, the supply of used batteries is created simultaneously with new battery demand: when a battery reaches end-of-life or fails to meet performance requirements, it is replaced—generating both a new sale and a used unit.

Used batteries typically become available in three ways:

Performance degradation or failure: The battery no longer meets the user's requirements due to reduced capacity or a fault.
Technological replacement: The battery or its host application is retired in favour of a newer, improved version.
End-of-life of the host application: The product housing the battery reaches the end of its usable life and is dismantled.

The dominant path to battery retirement varies significantly across application types:

In commercial vehicles, energy storage systems, and industrial equipment, batteries may be replaced during the product’s lifetime due to performance limitations.
In personal mobility devices and light electric vehicles, batteries are typically used until the host product is decommissioned, with limited interim replacements.
In data centres, battery backup units are often retired prematurely as part of scheduled IT hardware upgrades, rather than due to battery degradation.

Battery Reuse Pathways

Used batteries are reused where market conditions allow. Reuse is most common in the same application for which the battery was originally designed—for example, as replacement parts in mobile phones, laptops, and increasingly, electric vehicles.

Repurposing batteries for entirely new applications is also a growing area, though it is highly dependent on:

The availability and quality of used batteries
The price and competitiveness of new batteries
The cost and feasibility of testing, certification, and integration into new systems

Because of these dependencies, the reuse market is dynamic. CES projects the share of used batteries reused based on real market demand for specific battery types and applications.

Trade and Cross-Border Flows

Battery reuse and end-of-life volumes must account for international trade. While end-of-life estimates are based on original product sales, batteries and their host applications are frequently exported—especially phones, laptops, vehicles, and industrial equipment.

As a result, the number of batteries reaching end-of-life in a given country may differ significantly from the number originally sold there. For example:

Exported products reduce the domestic end-of-life base.
Imported used products may increase local reuse and replacement activity.

CES incorporates product movement and trade patterns into its forecasting models to provide geographically accurate projections of used battery availability and demand.

Methodology and Data Sources

The projection of used battery supply is based on three core models:

Battery lifecycle analysis – Estimating when batteries reach the end of their useful life in different applications
Application export modelling – Accounting for the international movement of products containing batteries
Reuse rate forecasting – Estimating the proportion of batteries that are suitable and in demand for reuse

These models are applied to both historical and projected battery demand data, enabling forward-looking estimates of:

Batteries reaching end-of-life
Volumes available for reuse
Residual volumes likely to enter the recycling stream

Each component of the model is described in detail in the Battery Lifecycle section.

SUPPLY OF BATTERY SCRAP

Forecasting the Supply of Scrap from Battery Broduction and End-of-life Batteries

Battery Scrap – One Term, Two Very Different Streams

Battery scrap is commonly used as a blanket term, but in reality, it refers to two distinct types of waste:

Production Scrap
Generated during battery manufacturing, this type of scrap is an undesired by-product. Producers actively work to minimise it to improve yield, efficiency, and profitability. It is created in centralised, professional facilities and typically processed with the intent of maximising any residual value.

End-of-Life Batteries
These are batteries that have reached the end of their useful life in an application and are no longer considered viable for reuse or repurposing—often due to their age, condition, or lack of market demand. Most lithium-ion batteries are embedded in equipment or devices and are usually collected and handled by professional organisations. These organisations aim to recover as much value as possible, but they are generally more fragmented and geographically dispersed than battery manufacturers. This distribution can create challenges for recyclers, especially when sorting or disassembly is required.

Growth Drivers of Battery Scrap

The market for battery scrap does not follow the same growth logic as new or used batteries. In fact, it lacks inherent growth drivers.

This is due to several structural and economic factors:

Higher Value Elsewhere
Batteries retain far greater value when in use—either in their original application or in secondary uses such as energy storage. Only when all other value-generating pathways are exhausted do batteries enter the scrap market. Recycling is, in this sense, the final step.

Material Deficit and Market Immaturity
As the overall battery market grows from a low baseline, recycled materials will remain in deficit compared to demand for virgin materials for the foreseeable future. While the environmental benefits of recycling are clear, recycled materials remain a subset of the broader material market. Without strong policy interventions or incentives, there's little to distinguish demand for recycled materials from demand for virgin ones. As a result, increasing demand for recycled content rarely translates into increased battery scrap supply—since the supply is constrained by the longer lifetime and reuse of batteries.

Material Prices and Market Feedback Loops
Prices of key battery constituents (lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc.) do correlate with demand for scrap in the recycling sector. However, price increases typically raise the cost of all batteries, making second-life applications more attractive. This limits the flow of batteries into recycling and further delays scrap generation.

Production Scrap is Not a Goal
Battery producers do not benefit from producing scrap. Waste represents inefficiency and lost revenue. While unavoidable to some extent, it is always minimised, and therefore unlikely to grow disproportionately.

The result is that the main drivers of battery scrap supply are tied to the upstream markets:

Growth in Battery Production → leads to more production scrap
Growth in Battery Demand and Use → results in more batteries eventually reaching end-of-life

Methodology and Data Sources

From the Supply of Used Batteries, it is projected that batteries which are no longer attractive enough to enter reuse or repurposing markets will instead be sold to recycling companies. The share of batteries going to other waste streams, such as landfill or incineration, is considered marginal and largely limited to portable electronics.

As a result, the supply of scrap from end-of-life batteries is primarily determined by three key ratios:

Export Ratio of Applications
Battery Lifetime Ratio
Reuse Ratio

(All available under the Battery Lifecycle section.)

This also implies that different applications—and even different models within the same product category (especially in EVs)—will exhibit varying timelines for when they become available for recycling.

To validate our volume projections, we backtrack the estimated flows against real-world data. This includes publicly reported figures from authorities, disclosures by listed recycling companies, and direct communication with individual recyclers.

Importantly, the supply of batteries within a specific market does not guarantee that those batteries will be recycled locally. Batteries can be:

Exported as functional units to other markets
Pre-processed and exported as black mass or other intermediate materials

Production scrap is generated by the assessment of Battery Production forecast, expressed in cell-equivalent weights. This means that even partial waste—such as scrap generated during cathode or anode coating—is represented in our data as if it were part of complete battery cells. This methodology allows for consistent comparison between production scrap and end-of-life battery volumes.

Each production facility in our database has a unique scrap rate, which is determined based on:

The manufacturer
The location of the plant
The maturity of the facility
The type of battery being produced

This approach reflects real operational differences and enables more accurate forecasts.

Assessment of Scrap Components and Intermediaries

At present, we apply a global average distribution to production scrap across the following components:

Cathode foils
Anode foils
Jelly rolls
Dry cells
Wet (fully assembled) cells

This breakdown is based on real material weights. As such, the figures are not directly comparable with volumes expressed as waste batteries or cell-equivalent production scrap.

Our long-term objective is to move beyond global averages and individualise the scrap composition as much as possible, based on plant-level and process-specific data.

Breakdown of 1 tonne of battery production scrap (by real weight):

Cathode foils18.2%
Anode foils12.3%
Jelly rolls10.5%
Dry cells18.8%
Wet cells24.9%

From Battery production waste it is assessed that cathode foils will result in so called Black powder (cathode powder with no graphite or electrolyte) in Europe while Jelly rolls and cells will be turned into Black Mass (with graphite contained). In China it is considered that cathode material also from Jelly Rolls and Dry Cells will be turned into Black Powder and Anode Powder.

From end-of-life batteries it is considered that all everything will be turned into black mass. This is due to a need for simplification and it should be noted that materials could also be turned into other intermediaries such as alloys.

We use standardised conversion rates to estimate yields. These rates reflect material content but do not account for losses or contamination:

Black Powder from cathode foils: 90%
Black Powder from jelly rolls: 52%
Black Powder from dry cells: 48%
Anode Powder from anode foils: 73%
Anode Powder from jelly rolls: 28%
Anode Powder from dry cells: 26%
Black mass from jelly rolls: 80%
Black mass from Dry Cells: 75%
Black mass from Wet Cells/End-of-life cells: 64% (with electrolyte removed)