Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

• Advanced battery materials aiming at storage duration from 10 hours to seasonal storage are developed, thus contributing to the Renewable Energy targets set by RePowerEU;
• Minimised use of Critical Raw Materials (CRM) in line with the EU's Critical Raw Materials Act^[1] to enhance economic base, reduce dependencies and ensure competitiveness in green and digital transitions;
• Development of viable alternatives to the current state of the art for battery technologies and to other seasonal storage devices in terms of cost, efficiency, safety, lifetime and (environmental) sustainability;
• Improved longevity of energy storage systems;
• Battery technologies with minimal required auxiliary services, storage in a wide range of State-of-Charges (SOCs), and minimal voltage slippage.

This topic aims to promote the development of materials that are recyclable, with low environmental impact, safe and with a potential for large-scale manufacturing. To the extent possible, the safety and sustainability of developed materials are expected be assessed in alignment with the Commission Recommendation on safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials^[2].

Projects are expected to demonstrate credible commercial and technical paths that are able to satisfy all the following points:

• Energy storage system cost (CAPEX) lower than 50 €/kWh;
• Projected lifetime of 20 years with minimised self-discharge in operating and ambient conditions typical of the selected application;
• Minimum round-trip efficiency of 50% at energy storage system (AC) level and 75% at cell level;
• Large-scale deployment in the long term of reliable materials supply and manufacturing of cell or reaction stack.

Projects are expected to focus on technologies that are presently at a low Technology Readiness Level. Lithium-ion, vanadium-based redox flow, sodium-ion using liquid electrolyte, molten sodium-sulphur and other commercialised technologies are out of scope of this topic.

Taking the above into account, the scope of the topic is technology neutral. In case the following battery chemistries or configurations are chosen, the following points must be addressed:

• For metal-air chemistries: reduce sensitivity to impurities of gases;
• For multivalent chemistries: develop electrolytes with reduced corrosivity and improved compatibility with other cell components and housing;
• For materials for redox flow chemistries: develop redox couples with minimised share of Critical Raw Materials (CRM)^[1];
• For Potassium batteries: address rate performance limitations due to potassium ion diffusivity and electrolyte decomposition due to high K+/K redox.

Projects are encouraged to implement calibrated and validated computational models and/or (generative) artificial intelligence methods for materials discovery and cell design.

Whenever the expected exploitation of project results entails developing, creating, manufacturing and marketing a product or process, or in creating and providing a service, the plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results must include a strategy for such exploitation. The exploitation plans should include preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation, and deployment (feasibility study, business plan).

Proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC)^[4] whose contribution could consist of performing experimental research on battery performance and/or safety. For further information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the projects, please, search for additional publicly available information on the JRC’s website (EU Science Hub) on the NCP portal, or request specific information from the JRC (JRC-NCP-Network@ec.europa.eu)

JRC shall assure that all the other applicants receive the same information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the project (e.g., via the topic-specific FAQs under the Funding and Tenders Portal).

Projects are expected to collaborate and contribute to the activities of the Coordination and Support Action defined under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-D2-02-06.

To strengthen the European battery ecosystem, projects are expected to use materials, products and equipment produced in EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe, unless it is demonstrated that no valid option exists. The procurement strategies should be described in the proposal, especially and to the furthest extent possible the place of production of the elements.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

[1] Regulation - EU - 2024/1252 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)

[2] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/recommendation-safe-and-sustainable-chemicals-published-2022-12-08_en

[3] Regulation - EU - 2024/1252 - EN - EUR-Lex (europa.eu)

[4] https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/laboratories-z/battery-energy-storage-testing_en