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Tianneng Holding Group, a producer of both lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries in China, will invest 3Bn RMB ($473M) in a greenfield plant for reuse and recycling of 100,000 tonnes of lithium-ion batteries per year. The plant will be located in Binhai County in the Jiangsu Province, 5 hours north of Shanghai.
Tianneng is one of China's largest lead-acid battery manufacturers. The company has just like other lead-acid producers such as Vision and Camel, been investing in lithium-ion battery production. In 2019 the company established a joint venture with Total Energies' battery company SAFT for production of lithium-ion batteries for the stationary energy storage, UPS as well as e-bikes and electric cars.
The reuse and recycling facility in which batteries will first be assessed for repurposing prior to either of the two routes, will be built in two phases with the first being built for processing of 60,000 tonnes of batteries (pack level) with an investment of 1.9Bn RMB, followed by a second with a 40,000 tonnes capacity.
The investment is one of many new recycling facilities by companies with no or little experience from lithium-ion battery recycling. Similar to Camel and Vision which also are in lead-acid batteries Tianneng is however a big recycler of lead with three large plants in China and an annual capacity of 800,000 tonnes of lead-acid battery. Now the company is trying to create the same circular system for lithium-ion.
Read more about Tianneng here.