EU Auditors Criticize Bloc’s Battery Strategy

The European Union is over-concentrating its public support for energy storage in lithium-ion batteries when money could be better spent on more advanced batteries, an area in which European companies might gain a competitive edge, the EU’s investigative audit agency said.

Of 315 million euros ($353 million) in public money spent by the EU on battery research under its main science program, Horizon 2020, 52 percent went to lithium-ion technologies while only small shares went to “potentially next-generation types of batteries,” the European Court of Auditors said in a report published April 1. For example, 7 percent of ...