Blog

Regulation

The EU central DPP registry is live: what economic operators need to know

Since 20 July 2026 the European Commission's central Digital Product Passport registry has been open, and every battery passport required from 18 February 2027 must be declared in it before the battery reaches the EU market. The registry stores identifiers, not your passport data. Here is how registration works and what it changes for manufacturers and importers.

Sebastien Peterson

28 July 2026

Recycling Second Life

Second life or shredder? Let State-of-Health data decide

An EV battery retired at 75% capacity can still earn a decade in stationary storage - or it can be scrap. The difference is rarely the battery; it is whether anyone can prove its condition. Live BMS data in the passport makes that proof routine.

Sebastien Peterson

21 July 2026

Regulation

After batteries: the Digital Product Passport is coming for everything

The battery passport due on 18 February 2027 is only the first. Under the ESPR, digital product passports reach steel, textiles, tyres and furniture next, with delegated acts scheduled from 2026. Battery players are learning per-unit identity, access tiers and live data first, and every other sector will inherit their playbook.

Sebastien Peterson

14 July 2026

Recycling

Why recyclers shouldn't wait for 2027 to demand battery passports

The 18 February 2027 passport deadline obliges manufacturers and importers, not recyclers. Yet recyclers capture most of the gains: triage in seconds, fewer thermal incidents, lots priced on content. The facilities that demand passport data now will be the certified-feedstock sellers when the 2031 recycled-content quotas arrive.

Sebastien Peterson

7 July 2026

Regulation

Battery passports around the world: EU, China, US, UK and beyond

The EU passport deadline of 18 February 2027 gets the headlines, but China's mandatory traceability platform went live in April 2026, South Korea has required battery IDs since 2025, and the US, UK and Japan are moving in the same direction. Exporters who build one passport data foundation and map it to each scheme will comply everywhere; those who build per-market silos will pay for the same data five times.

Sebastien Peterson

30 June 2026

Recycling

From passport to recycling manifest: ending blind triage at the gate

Recyclers receive packs they know almost nothing about: unknown chemistry, unknown state of charge, unknown disassembly path. A battery passport that matures into a recycling manifest turns intake from guesswork into a single scan.

Sebastien Peterson

18 June 2026

Regulation Second Life

Batteries above 2 kWh: what BESS and industrial operators must do before 2027

The battery passport is discussed as an EV rule, but every industrial battery above 2 kWh placed on the EU market from 18 February 2027 needs one, and that threshold covers essentially all stationary storage. Systems ordered today will be delivered under the new regime, so passport readiness belongs in the purchase order, not in a compliance file opened after commissioning.

Sebastien Peterson

16 June 2026

Recycling

Black mass is a downgrade: how data keeps battery materials at their highest value

Shredding a poorly documented pack turns premium cathode material into low-grade mixed black mass. Chemistry, charge state and damage data at intake decide whether a recycler dismantles or shreds, and that routing decision sets the margin per tonne and the odds of hitting the EU recovery targets.

Sebastien Peterson

9 June 2026

Recycling Second Life

The end-of-life wave: 2027-2035, when the first EV generation retires

The first mass generation of EV batteries retires between 2027 and 2035, and the recovery targets waiting for those packs are already law: 50% of lithium by end 2027, 80% by 2031, 95% for cobalt, copper, lead and nickel. Europe is building shredding capacity on schedule. The scarce resource is the paperwork that turns a retired pack into countable, recoverable kilograms.

Sebastien Peterson

2 June 2026

Second Life

The 30% premium: how a verified health history changes second-life economics

Two physically identical retired EV packs can differ in price by about 30%. The gap is not the cells, it is proof: buyers discount undocumented packs, cycle-test them for weeks, and struggle to warranty or finance the result. A worked second-life storage example shows where each euro of the premium comes from.

Sebastien Peterson

26 May 2026

Regulation Data

The battery carbon footprint declaration: why PCF comes before the passport

EV batteries placed on the EU market have needed a verified carbon footprint declaration since 18 February 2025, two years before the digital passport. The declared number, in kg CO2e per kWh delivered over service life, will soon sort batteries into performance classes and eventually face maximum thresholds. The hardest data to collect is your suppliers', and recycled feedstock is the most reliable way to bring the total down.

Sebastien Peterson

19 May 2026

Regulation

Battery due diligence under EU 2023/1542: the other half of 2027 compliance

The passport deadline of 18 February 2027 gets the headlines, but the same regulation activates supply-chain due diligence for cobalt, lithium, nickel and natural graphite on 18 August 2027. Policies, traceability systems and third-party audits are required, and most of the evidence is data the passport already collects.

Sebastien Peterson

5 May 2026

Data

Catena-X, Gaia-X and the interoperability question: will your battery passport survive the hand-off?

A battery passport spends 15 to 20 years crossing company boundaries: OEM to fleet, fleet to second-life operator, operator to recycler. A passport locked inside one vendor's platform fails at exactly those moments. Here is what Catena-X and Gaia-X actually standardise, and what to demand from any passport vendor before you sign.

Sebastien Peterson

28 April 2026

Data

QR codes, GS1, DIDs: choosing a unique identifier for your battery passport

From February 2027 every EV and industrial battery carries a QR code engraved into the pack, and behind it a unique identifier that must stay valid for 15 to 20 years. The regulation names the standard family but not the scheme: GS1 Digital Link, W3C DIDs and plain serials all compete for that engraving. Here is what is legally required, what is your choice, and the traps to catch before printing a million labels.

Sebastien Peterson

21 April 2026

Second Life Data

What "dynamic data" really means: connecting the BMS to the passport

The EU battery passport must carry state-of-health and usage data that stays current through the battery's life, per Annex VII of Regulation 2023/1542. The BMS already measures everything the annex asks for; the missing piece is the bridge that carries those numbers into the passport across every change of owner, because live SoH is the input the reuse-or-recycle decision runs on.

Sebastien Peterson

14 April 2026

Data

Sharing chemistry data without leaking your recipe: zero-knowledge proofs for batteries

From 18 August 2031, new EV and industrial batteries must contain at least 16% recycled cobalt, and manufacturers must prove it to readers they do not fully trust. Zero-knowledge proofs let a passport verify a claim like "over 16% recycled cobalt" while the formulation stays sealed. An NDA promises silence; cryptography enforces it.

Sebastien Peterson

7 April 2026

Regulation Recycling

The 2031 recycled-content quotas: proving 16% cobalt when your evidence is a PDF

From 18 August 2031, new industrial and EV batteries must contain minimum shares of recycled cobalt, lead, lithium and nickel. The recovered metal will exist; the proof mostly will not, because today's chain of custody lives in supplier PDFs and spreadsheets. Passport-to-passport material lineage turns the quota from a filing exercise into a data query.

Sebastien Peterson

31 March 2026

Regulation

Who sees what in the battery passport? Public, regulator and recycler access explained

The battery passport is one record with three audiences. Regulation 2023/1542 sorts its 90+ attributes into access tiers: sustainability facts for anyone who scans the QR code, compliance evidence for authorities, dismantling and health data for recyclers and second-life operators. That split is what makes the passport workable, because it protects manufacturer IP while giving each reader exactly the data their job requires.

Sebastien Peterson

24 March 2026

Regulation

Inside the battery passport: the 90+ mandatory data attributes explained

Annex XIII of Regulation 2023/1542 lists more than 90 data attributes every battery passport must carry from 18 February 2027. Almost all of them already exist somewhere in a manufacturer's systems; the hard part is that "somewhere" is five systems and a stack of supplier spreadsheets, and the supply-chain-dependent fields take the longest to secure.

Sebastien Peterson

17 March 2026

Regulation

EU Battery Regulation timeline: every deadline from 2025 to 2036

Regulation 2023/1542 does not arrive as one deadline but as a decade of them: carbon-footprint declarations in 2025, the passport mandate in 2027, recovery targets in 2027 and 2031, recycled-content quotas in 2031 and 2036. The companies that cope are the ones that treat the dates as one data pipeline, because what each deadline demands is built from the one before.

Sebastien Peterson

10 March 2026