- The new plant that will be located in the El Bayo Industrial Estate, in Cubillos del Sil, and construction will begin in the second half of 2023, an operation that will involve the creation of about 50 jobs.
- This installation will require an investment of €14 million and is part of Endesa's Futur-e Plan with the objective of generating new long-lasting industrial activity in the area.
Today, the General Manager of Endesa Noroeste, Miguel Temboury, and the Project Manager of Sertego (Urbaser Group), Toni Massot, presented in Ponferrada Novolitio, a new company that will build and develop the activity of the first electric vehicle battery recycling plant in the Iberian Peninsula. The event was also attended by Julián Martínez Bejarano, representing the Fair Transition Institute, and Miguel Martinez, from the General Directorate for Energy and Mines in the Castile-León Regional Government.
The construction of this new installation will require an investment of €14 million and is part of Endesa's Futur-e plan that aims to generate new industrial economic activity in El Bierzo, a region with which the company has close links because of its activity in the thermal power plant that there used to be in Cubillos del Sil and that is currently being dismantled.
"This new company that has been created today is another step forward in Endesa's commitment to the future in Castile-León", said Miguel Temboury, who reminded us that "Novolitio responds to the current need to find a circular economy solution for the recovery and recycling of components of lithium batteries in electric vehicles, and represents a commitment to sustainable development and environmental protection. We are certain that once it is operational, it will be a benchmark in Europe."
"With this initiative Urbaser will be well-positioned in a segment with great potential for future growth," said Aitor Jauregui, Manager of Sertego (Urbaser Group), "and will enable us to continue offering our customers environmental management solutions adapted to their needs. This makes Urbaser a key player with an international leadership position in circular economy."
The first electric vehicle battery recycling plant in the Iberian Peninsula will be located in the El Bayo Industrial Estate, and its construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2023.
The new installation will occupy an area of 15,000 square metres and will have the latest technology on an industrial scale as a result of an R+D programme that enabled improvements to be implemented in the different solutions for the extraction, diagnosis, discharge and recycling of battery components.
The plant will identify those batteries that still have an additional use and to which it will be possible to give a second life. The others will be subjected to a process to extract the elements of which they are composed, recovering value from about 90% of them.
Products recovered in the process
Novolitio will be responsible for managing the collection of electric batteries in Spain and Portugal, then storing them and transporting them to Cubillos del Sil, for subsequent processing in the new installations, where those batteries that cannot be re-used will be electrically discharged, dismantled and subjected to a separation and crushing process. This will make it possible to recycle the materials present, including aluminium, copper and plastics, as well as the "black-mass", which constitutes the fraction rich in strategic metals which are of great value in Europe, such as cobalt and nickel, both essential for the manufacture of batteries. The use of recycled metals significantly reduces the environmental footprint left by new batteries, making their production process more sustainable.
The plant, one of the projects approved by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the Regional Government of Castile-León, the mayors of Ponferrada and Cubillos del Sil, and the University of León, will recycle 8,000 tons of batteries per year, generating about 50 direct jobs for its operation.
Urbaser will participate in this initiative through Sertego, its subsidiary responsible for the integral, sustainable management of industrial waste. The former is a leading company in environmental management, with a presence in 21 countries, and they are experts in the collection, storage and processing of waste. Sertego will be responsible for managing the twenty collection installations which will supply the electric vehicle batteries to be processed at the Cubillos del Sil plant. It will also manage operations and maintenance.
Endesa will not only lead the development of the project, it will also contribute management and its knowledge of electric mobility. This initiative will contribute to relaunching the El Bierzo region and is a clear expression of Endesa's commitment to the circular economy.
This project, together with the others approved for El Bierzo within the Futur-e Plan to revitalise this region through a programme that envisages the occupation of the site for the old thermal power plant, as well as the use of equipment that was used in this installation. These initiatives will create about 160 new jobs and involve an investment exceeding €260 million.
Business projects were selected by international tender with the aim of mitigating the end of thermal generation activities, in accordance with the goals established in Brussels. The projects contributed by Endesa to this process include the development of 481 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy in the area, the organisation of professional training courses and the prioritisation of local labour to dismantle the old thermal power plant.
About Endesa
Endesa is the largest electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. The company is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. Endesa operates an end-to-end generation, distribution and marketing business. Through Endesa X, it also offers value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy usage in homes, companies, industries and Public Administrations. It has also created a new line of business. Endesa X Way is fully dedicated to electric mobility. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power España, the digitalisation of grids through e-distribution, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR-related matters. Our workforce numbers around 9,260 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.
About Urbaser
Urbaser is a leading global environmental management company, focussed on sustainability and innovation, providing service for more than 70 million people in 21 countries through a network with more than 59,719 employees. It is currently responsible for cleaning more than 8 million kilometres of streets in different cities around the world and maintaining 25 million square metres of green areas. It operates 75 waste treatment installations with a total of 20.4 million tons processed; it produces 2,885 GWh of energy from waste and during the last year it avoided the emission of the equivalent of almost 2.2 million tons of CO2. It has a subsidiary called Sertego which is responsible for the integral management (collection, transport, treatment, processing and recovery) and sustainable management of hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste.