DOE Announces Actions to Bolster Domestic Supply Chain of Advanced Batteries

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced new immediate policy actions to scale up a domestic manufacturing supply chain for advanced battery materials and technologies. These efforts follow the 100-Day review of advanced batteries—directed by President Biden’s Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains—which assesses vulnerabilities and opportunities in the current and forecasted battery supply chain landscape, and identifies policy recommendations to address them. Together, these actions will position the U.S. to lead an emerging global market, secure the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness, and create good-paying jobs for American workers, while supporting the Biden Administration’s bold decarbonization goals.

“We’re going to need a significant increase in battery production to supercharge America’s clean energy future, which means we urgently need to build up our capacity to research, develop, manufacture, and market batteries right here at home,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Strengthening our domestic supply chain will accelerate our efforts to decarbonize the economy—helping to power electric vehicles and boost grid storage and resiliency. We must seize the opportunity for the U.S. to lead an emerging global industry to create good-paying jobs for American workers that will be in demand for decades to come.”

Advanced, lithium-based batteries play an integral role in 21st-century technologies such as electric vehicles and stationary grid storage that will be critical to securing America’s clean energy future. Today, the U.S. relies heavily on importing advanced battery components from abroad, exposing the nation to supply chain vulnerabilities that threaten to disrupt the availability and cost of these technologies, as well as the workforce that manufactures them. DOE’s battery supply chain assessment found that currently, the U.S. has less than a 10% global market share for manufacturing capacity across all major battery components and cell fabrication.

As demand for EVs and stationary storage alone is projected to increase the size of the lithium battery market five- to ten-fold by the end of the decade, DOE’s assessment underscores the need for robust and swift policy action to support the full U.S. battery supply chain—reducing risks, spurring domestic job creation, and boosting demand for technologies that are critical to addressing the climate crisis.

While today’s immediate executive actions are important, the Biden-Harris Administration also called on Congress to make critical investments to grow America’s ability to produce high-capacity batteries and the products that use them. View the full DOE fact sheet here.