Renault Group to partner with Terrafame for sustainable nickel

Renault Group and Terrafame, a company operating one of the world's largest production lines for EV battery chemicals in Finland, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the future supply of nickel sulphate.

Renault Group will secure a significant annual supply of nickel sulphate from Terrafame, representing up to 15GWh of annual capacity. The cooperation will start by paying particular attention to sustainability systems and defining detailed metrics for traceability beyond solutions currently used for EV battery chemicals production.

Renault Group is working on the deployment of higher performing, low-carbon and reusable batteries. Combined with the recent partnership with Vulcan to secure low-carbon lithium and the alliance with Veolia & Solvay to recycle battery materials in a closed loop, this new agreement marks another step towards the reduction of the environmental footprint of EVs throughout their life cycle and towards the objective of carbon neutrality for the Group in Europe by 2040.

Terrafame’s bioleaching-based production process (extraction of metals from their ores through the use of living organisms) uses about 90% less energy in the production of nickel sulphate than the industry average. In addition, Terrafame's integrated production process begins and ends on one industrial site from a mine to battery chemicals production. These unique and energy-efficient features enable a fast-track to implement sustainability systems and create full transparency throughout the entire value chain. Apart from the detailed metrics, a commitment over the entire supply chain simplifies risk management and pricing mechanisms for all parties involved.

The memorandum is not exhaustive but reflects the parties’ mutual understanding and common intention to deepen the cooperation over the battery raw materials. The parties seek to introduce a set of binding agreements involving also other actors in the EV battery value chain to take part in this development step.