“This represents an important milestone for Li-Cycle as we expand our proven lithium-ion battery resource recovery solution into the European market and execute on our globally-oriented growth strategy with industry-leading partners,” Li-Cycle CEO Ajay Kochhar said in a release. “Norway is leading the way in EV adoption and the ecosystem that surrounds it, acting as a beacon for electrification around the world and creating a strong market for the recyclers of battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries domestically.”

Li-Cycle, a Toronto-based company, will run the recycling plant, which will be capable of processing battery manufacturing scrap, entire electric vehicle battery packs, and energy storage systems.

The plant will produce black mass, the battery recycling byproduct that contains a mixture of critical battery metals. Li-Cycle will have an option to purchase 100% of the black mass produced.

The plant will take end-of-life lithium-ion batteries from energy storage developer ECO STOR, and battery-cell manufacturer Morrow will supply manufacturing scrap from its planned facilities in Norway.

“Through this partnership, we will provide a closed material loop ecosystem across Europe for our customers and ensure that we maintain the value of battery materials through re-use and recycling to create lengthy value for our industry,” Morrow CEO Terje Andersen said in the statement.

ECO STOR and Morrow are both Norwegian companies.

Norway was also selected as Li-Cycle’s first recycling location outside of North America because sales of internal combustion engine vehicles are expected to be phased out in the country as soon as April.

“This would be three years ahead of the Norwegian government proposed 2025 target, which will deliver a potentially large, sustainable long-term supply of end-of-life batteries,” Li-Cycle said.

The companies are in the process of finalizing the site for the plant and are awaiting regulatory approvals.

Li-Cycle already has recycling plants in Kingston, Ontario, and Rochester, New York. The company has installed facilities with an individual capacity of 5,000 mt/year to process lithium batteries at each of its sites.

The battery recycler opened a third processing centre in Arizona in 2022 also with 10,000 mt/year capacity and followed that with a full-scale "North American Hub" in Rochester in 2023.

Rochester facility will be able to reclaim battery-grade materials from the equivalent of 60,000 mt of lithium batteries per year.