Germany BMWE funds EUR 170m of STARK battery-materials transformation projects in coal regions

Mechanism

STARK is a BMWE regional-development programme covering the Rhineland, Central German (Saxony- Anhalt), Lusatian and Ruhr coal-transition regions. In August 2024 BMWE added a direct company-funding component to STARK alongside its existing regional/municipal-infrastructure grants. The 19 December 2025 announcement is the first large tranche disclosed under that company-funding component, and it concentrates on domestic battery-materials capacity rather than general regional infrastructure:

• Cylib (Chempark Dormagen, Rhineland) — EUR 63.4m for a 60,000 t/year industrial-scale LFP

battery-recycling line, described as the first of its kind in Europe; ~180 direct and up to 1,000 indirect jobs.

• AMG-Lithium (Chemiepark Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Central Germany) — EUR 36m to expand

battery-grade lithium-salt production to ~20,000 t/year.

• Altech Batteries (Schwarze Pumpe, Lusatia) — EUR 46.1m for a CERENERGY sodium-based

stationary energy-storage factory.

• ORE Energy (Gelsenkirchen, Ruhr) — EUR 16.2m for the "IronAir4Ruhr" iron-air storage

project.

Total disclosed across these four projects is ~EUR 161.7m of the ~EUR 170m headline; BMWE's release references seven funded projects in total, with the remaining three not yet individually named in the primary source. Funding flows as direct grants rather than loan guarantees or tax credits, and requires no EU State Aid IPCEI-style multi-member-state coordination — this is a purely domestic structural-fund disbursement under the 2020 Strukturstärkungsgesetz Kohleregionen framework.

Downstream implications

• Anchors Germany's LFP-recycling and battery-grade lithium-salt refining capacity inside former

coal regions, reducing the EU's reliance on China-routed lithium-chemical processing for the LFP segment specifically (Cylib + AMG-Lithium together target ~80,000 t/year of recycled/refined lithium-chemical throughput).

• Diversifies stationary storage chemistry away from lithium dependence via two non-lithium

projects (Altech's sodium-based CERENERGY, ORE Energy's iron-air), a hedge against upstream lithium price and supply risk for the storage segment.

• Complements the EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542) recycled-content mandates by directly

subsidising domestic recycling capacity ahead of the regulation's phased minimum-recycled- content thresholds.

• Regional-development framing (coal-transition job replacement) provides a politically durable

funding channel for critical-minerals-adjacent industrial policy that is less exposed to EU State Aid IPCEI notification timelines than the semiconductor-sector precedent (2026-03-19-germany-ipcei-ast-halbleiter-38-projects).

Open questions

• Names and funding amounts for the three remaining STARK-funded projects (of seven total) are not

yet disclosed in public BMWE materials as of the filing date.

• Whether Cylib's and AMG-Lithium's output will be certified for EU Battery Regulation

recycled-content compliance, and on what timeline relative to the regulation's phased mandates.

• Whether the domestic-lithium-chemical buildout materially shifts EU import dependence figures

given the modest absolute scale (~20,000-60,000 t/year per project) relative to overall EU battery-grade lithium demand.