Over EUR 150 million grant from the European Commission for the Elemental Group to implement the strategic Polvolt project for Poland and the EU

The European Commission has awarded EUR 2.9 billion in funding to 61 innovative low-emission technology projects under the Innovation Fund. Among them, a grant worth EUR 150.5 million has been awarded to the Polvolt investment in Zawiercie, implemented by Elemental Battery Metals, a company belonging to the Elemental Group. Polvolt is the largest production hub for strategic metals on the European continent and one of the key initiatives for the raw materials security of both the European Union and Poland in the field of critical metals production.

“All formalities related to obtaining the European Commission grant from the Innovation Fund should be completed in the first quarter of 2026,” explains Maciej Dudzic, CEO of Elemental Battery Metals. “I am proud that we have received this grant offer from the European Commission. It is yet another tangible expression of trust and recognition for a Polish company. I want to remind you that in September this year, we signed an agreement with the Ministry of Development and Technology to secure a grant of PLN 1.038 billion under the EU’s Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF) program,” adds Maciej Dudzic.

Polvolt worth one billion dollars

A total of approximately USD 1 billion will be invested in Zawiercie over the next seven years. Polvolt is the largest investment implemented by a private entity in a strategic sector in Poland. The innovation of the project lies in combining environmentally friendly metallurgical processes with the recycling of so-called “black mass,” derived from used lithium-ion batteries and production waste.

The investment is being implemented in two stages. The first stage of the Elemental Group’s investment program was the opening of the Elemental Strategic Metals (ESM) plant in Zawiercie in June 2024. The facility includes a recycling plant for lithium-ion batteries (from electric vehicles, energy storage systems, drones, smartphones, and laptops) as well as a plant producing platinum group metals recovered from used catalytic converters.

At ESM, as many as eight of the 34 raw materials identified by the European Commission as critical are recovered — cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, and nickel, as well as platinum group metals: palladium, platinum, and rhodium. It is worth noting that the Elemental Group has as much as a 15% share in global platinum group metal recovery.

The second stage of the investment program is the Polvolt project itself — the production of critical raw materials from the “black mass,” which is already being obtained as a mixture of battery metals. From 2031 onward, Elemental Battery Metals will produce, on an industrial scale, gold, silver, copper, and battery metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese.

“The capacity of the Elemental Strategic Metals plant, operating since last year, is 12,000 tons of batteries and 6,000 tons of catalytic converters processed annually. As the Elemental Group, we also process over 40,000 tons of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and over 110,000 tons of electronic waste worldwide each year,” summarizes Paweł Jarski, CEO of the Elemental Group. “Ultimately, metals recovered in Zawiercie will be used in strategic industries, including energy, defense, automotive, and telecommunications,” adds Paweł Jarski.

The EU focuses on the extraction and recovery of critical raw materials

The Innovation Fund is one of the world’s largest funding programs for low-emission technologies, managed by the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) and the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).

The Fund is financed from the revenues of EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowance auctions and — depending on the carbon price — may reach a value of up to EUR 10 billion. The program aims to support investments that will genuinely accelerate the decarbonization of the European Union’s economy.

The extraction and recovery of critical raw materials — including lithium, nickel, and copper — are now a cornerstone of Europe’s economic security¹. In 2024, the European Union adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA)^{2, 3}, which sets targets for 2030: at least 10% of consumption from EU extraction, 40% from processing, and 25% from recycling, while reducing dependence on single suppliers⁴.

In March 2025, the European Commission identified 47 strategic projects with a total value of EUR 22.5 billion⁵, including the Polvolt project in Zawiercie.

[1]^{1 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2024/766253/EPRS_BRI(2024)766253_EN.pdf}

^{2 https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en}
^{3 https://www.gov.pl/attachment/bfecbd8c-4464-46b5-9097-245b33446540}
^{4 https://www.gov.pl/web/klimat/ue-dazy-do-zapewnienia-stabilnych-i-zrownowazonych-dostaw-surowcow-krytycznych-otwarcie-naboru-wnioskow-dot-projektow-strategicznych-dla-ue}
^{5 https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/strategic-projects-under-crma/selected-projects_en}