German cell production pilot Fab4Lib kicks-off

Research project Fab4Lib kicks-off and wants to set-up serious cell production in Germany. Led by Terra E Holding, the project unites 19 partners among them Siemens, Thyssen Krupp, StreetScooter, or the RWTH.

Together the 19 research institutes and industrial companies launched the Fab4Lib research project at the Manz headquarters in Reutlingen.

They aim to enable large-scale production of lithium-ion battery cells and will start with demonstrators to be developed over the next 18 months (we reported).

The partners will look at the entire value chain of lithium-ion technology to come up with a competitive production unit. With a production capacity of approx. 6 GWh the unit takes a modular approach so that large production facilities could be pieced together whenever capacity is needed.

Within Fab4Lib, they divided the work in eleven packages, each led by one partner and worked on in teams. They focus on issues such as energy autonomous infrastructure, cell design, production processes and materials, industry 4.0 or battery recycling strategies.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with over 12 million euros. The government hopes this will provide the basis for building a large-scale production of Li-ion cells in Germany.

TerraE Holding GmbH is not only the lead for the project but plans to put those into practice though in its own facilities. The company is currently planning a German Gigafcatory a là Tesla where it wants to produce up to 34 GWh by 2028 (we reported).

What must be called a regional, or national effort for now, may later feed into a European strategy like the Battery Summit is struggling to lay out just now. Fab4Lib’s modular approach could enable an EU wide project to scale up if demand allows and after trust in the market has been established.

This is the complete list of partners taking part in Fab4Lib: TerraE Holding GmbH, StreetScooter GmbH, BMZ Batteries-Montage-Zentrum GmbH, SGL Group, Umicore AG & Co. KG, Custom Cells Itzehoe GmbH, Litarion GmbH, M + W Group GmbH, Manz AG, Siemens AG, thyssenkrupp System Engineering GmbH, MEET Battery Research Center of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Chair of Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components (PEM) of RWTH, Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW), Öko-Institut – Institute for Applied Ecology and associated partners Solvay Fluor GmbH, Leclanché GmbH and H & T Battery Components Group.

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