Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on: Com­mence­ment of fur­ther obligations

18 Febru­ary 2024 mark­ed the start­ing point for the basic date of appli­ca­ti­on of Regu­la­ti­on (EU) 2023/1542 con­cer­ning bat­te­ries and was­te bat­te­ries  (Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on, Batt­VO). Howe­ver, many pro­vi­si­ons of the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on are exempt from this basic date of appli­ca­ti­on and will only take legal effect at a later date. Against this back­ground, an important cut-off date is 18 August 2024, sin­ce when fur­ther pro­vi­si­ons of the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on have beco­me direct­ly applicable.

Obli­ga­ti­ons of eco­no­mic operators

Excep­ti­on: No con­for­mi­ty assess­ment regar­ding car­bon foot­print and recy­cled con­tent yet

The much-discussed sus­taina­bi­li­ty requi­re­ments on the car­bon foot­print (click here for the draft for­mat of car­bon foot­print decla­ra­ti­on) and the recy­cled con­tent do not yet app­ly and are also not part of the con­for­mi­ty assess­ment pro­ce­du­res (Art. 96 para. 2 lit. b) in con­junc­tion with Art. 17 para. 2 Batt­VO). Art. 17 para. 2 Batt­VO). A noti­fied body must be con­sul­ted to assess con­for­mi­ty with the­se sus­taina­bi­li­ty requi­re­ments. The mem­ber sta­tes are respon­si­ble for set­ting up the noti­fy­ing aut­ho­ri­ties. Only after the natio­nal noti­fi­ca­ti­on inclu­ding the noti­fied bodies has been set up can the EU Com­mis­si­on assign iden­ti­fi­ca­ti­on num­bers and publish a cor­re­spon­ding list, which is decisi­ve for the start of the con­for­mi­ty assess­ment with regard to the car­bon foot­print and the recy­cled con­tent. In Ger­ma­ny, accor­ding to the draft of the Bat­tery Law Imple­men­ta­ti­on Act (BattDG), the noti­fy­ing aut­ho­ri­ty is to be estab­lished by 18 August 2025, mea­ning that noti­fied bodies may only be desi­gna­ted after this date.

Sub­s­tance rest­ric­tions for lead in por­ta­ble batteries

Bat­te­ries must com­ply with sub­s­tance rest­ric­tions for cer­tain raw mate­ri­als. The Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on sup­ple­ments the REACH Regu­la­ti­on and requi­res that bat­te­ries do not con­tain any sub­s­tances for which Annex I of the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on con­ta­ins a rest­ric­tion unless the con­di­ti­ons of this rest­ric­tion are met (Art. 6 para. 1 Batt­VO). Accor­ding to Annex I, from 18 August 2024, por­ta­ble bat­te­ries, whe­ther or not incor­po­ra­ted into appli­ances, shall not con­tain more than 0,01 % of lead (expres­sed as lead metal) by weight.

Per­for­mance and dura­bi­li­ty requi­re­ments for indus­tri­al, LMT and EV batteries

Rech­ar­geable indus­tri­al bat­te­ries with a capa­ci­ty excee­ding 2 kWh, LMT bat­te­ries and elec­tro­nic vehic­le bat­te­ries must ful­fil per­for­mance and dura­bi­li­ty requi­re­ments in the future (Art. 10 Batt­VO). They must alre­a­dy now be accom­pa­nied by docu­men­ta­ti­on show­ing the values for the elec­tro­che­mi­cal per­for­mance and dura­bi­li­ty para­me­ters. The­se para­me­ters include, for exam­p­le, the rated capa­ci­ty and capa­ci­ty fade, the power and power fade, the inter­nal resis­tance and inter­nal resis­tance increase, whe­re appli­ca­ble, ener­gy round trip effi­ci­en­cy and its fade, as well as the expec­ted life­time of the bat­tery under the refe­rence con­di­ti­ons (Annex IV Part A). In turn, the tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­ti­on must sta­te the tech­ni­cal spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons, stan­dards and con­di­ti­ons accor­ding to which the values for the elec­tro­che­mi­cal per­for­mance and dura­bi­li­ty para­me­ters are mea­su­red, cal­cu­la­ted or esti­ma­ted (mini­mum spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­on is given in Annex IV Part B).

Safe­ty of sta­tio­na­ry bat­tery ener­gy sto­rage systems

For sta­tio­na­ry bat­tery ener­gy sto­rage sys­tems, now the spe­cial pro­vi­si­ons for the tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­ti­on are appli­ca­ble (Art. 12 Para. 2 Batt­VO). Pre­pa­ra­ti­ons for this must alre­a­dy have been com­ple­ted, as the tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­ti­on must pro­vi­de evi­dence and ins­truc­tions for the safe­ty of sta­tio­na­ry bat­tery ener­gy sto­rage sys­tems by 18 August 2024. This includes pro­of of safe­ty when used as inten­ded and suc­cessful test­ing based on the appli­ca­ble safe­ty para­me­ters, such as short cir­cuit, over­char­ge and over-temperature pro­tec­tion (Annex V). Safe­ty hazards that are not expli­cit­ly men­tio­ned in the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on must also be asses­sed and pro­of must be pro­vi­ded that the­se hazards have been suc­cessful­ly miti­ga­ted and tes­ted. Depen­ding on the resi­du­al risk that the iden­ti­fied hazards may nevert­hel­ess mate­ria­li­se, the tech­ni­cal docu­men­ta­ti­on must also con­tain ins­truc­tions for risk mitigation.

Infor­ma­ti­on in the bat­tery manage­ment sys­tem of cer­tain batteries

The bat­tery manage­ment sys­tem of sta­tio­na­ry bat­tery ener­gy sto­rage sys­tems (= indus­tri­al bat­te­ries), LMT bat­te­ries and EV bat­te­ries must now include up-to-date data on the para­me­ters for deter­mi­ning the sta­te of health and the expec­ted life­time of the bat­tery. The para­me­ters for the sta­te of health of sta­tio­na­ry bat­tery ener­gy sto­rage sys­tems include, for exam­p­le, the remai­ning capa­ci­ty, the remai­ning round trip effi­ci­en­cy and the evo­lu­ti­on of self-discharging rates (Annex VII). For elec­tric vehic­les, the­se pro­vi­si­ons regar­ding elec­tric vehic­le bat­te­ries app­ly in addi­ti­on to the EU type-approval regu­la­ti­ons (e.g. in accordance with Regu­la­ti­on (EU) 2018/858).

Con­clu­si­on and outlook

With 18 August 2024 the first major wave of obli­ga­ti­ons under the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on have come into force. The next major dead­line for the appli­ca­ti­on of fur­ther pro­vi­si­ons of the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on is 18 August 2025, when the obli­ga­ti­ons rela­ting to was­te bat­tery manage­ment and sup­p­ly chain manage­ment obli­ga­ti­ons in par­ti­cu­lar will beco­me effec­ti­ve. Play­ers in the bat­tery indus­try who are not alre­a­dy deal­ing with the requi­re­ments of the Bat­tery Regu­la­ti­on should do so as soon as pos­si­ble. Our com­pe­tence team for bat­te­ries and alter­na­ti­ve dri­ves will be hap­py to help you with tar­ge­ted advice on all aspects of batteries.