Gavin Welcomes Delegates to IEA Experts' Group Meeting on Scaling Battery Ecosystems, Birmingham

Gavin welcomed delegates to the International Energy Agency (IEA) Experts' Group on Research & Development Priority Setting meeting on Scaling Battery Ecosystems, held at TEP Birmingham on 4 and 5 November 2026. The meeting evaluated R,D & E priorities for overcoming gigafactory build-out bottlenecks, and was supported by the Faraday Institution and the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.

Speakers came from Japan, the United States and the EU, including the Faraday Institution, the IEA, Sandia National Laboratories, Delft University of Technology, the London School of Economics and the University of Vienna. Sessions were set to examine why gigafactories struggle to move from announcements to cost-competitive production, covering aggregated demand, local supply of active materials, energy-intensive industry support and circular lifecycles, with the aim of giving the IEA network evidence-based criteria for public funding.