American Battery Technology Company has won its appeal with the U.S. Department of Energy, reinstating a competitive grant award tied to the company’s $115 million project to construct the first phase of a commercial-scale critical mineral lithium refinery at its Tonopah Flats Lithium Project in Nevada.
The reinstatement puts renewed federal support behind a project, which is designed to strengthen domestic battery metals supply chains and national energy security. For the broader clean-tech industry, the announcement underscores a central reality of electrification: the growth of electric vehicles, stationary energy storage, and other battery-powered technologies depends not only on end-use deployment, but also on the availability of domestically manufactured battery materials.
According to the company, the reinstated DOE grant will support construction of the first phase of its Tonopah Flats commercial-scale refinery, which was initially selected for the five-year grant in October 2022.
The first phase of the refinery is expected to have an initial capacity of 5,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium hydroxide. Lithium hydroxide is a key input for lithium-ion battery production, making projects like this part of the upstream foundation for clean transportation, grid storage, and other electrification markets.
“We are proud of our long-standing partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, and are grateful that after rigorous due diligence it has concluded that this critical mineral lithium refinery project has achieved all of its contracted technical and commercial milestones to date, and that continued federal support of this project is warranted,” said CEO Ryan Melsert.
The grant has been reinstated in its entirety, with no change to the funds awarded, technical and commercial milestones, and an updated contracted project schedule to account for the time spent in the review process.
ABTC’s announcement comes as the clean tech industry continues to focus on the resilience, scalability, and domestic sourcing of battery supply chains. While much of the public conversation around electrification focuses on vehicles, charging, and energy storage deployment, the availability of battery-grade materials remains a critical piece of the clean-tech value chain.
In June 2025, ABTC’s Tonopah Flats Lithium Project was selected by the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council and the FAST-41 Permitting Council as a critical mineral Priority Project for streamlined and fast-tracked federal permitting. However, in October, ABTC was notified that the DOE grant was being terminated, along with hundreds of other DOE grants. The company submitted an appeal the next day.
The company and DOE then entered into a series of technical and commercial reviews, culminating in a final review meeting in December 2025. Following that process, the company received notice from DOE that continuation of the project was warranted.
Melsert said the reinstatement reflects the importance of scaling domestic critical mineral technologies.
“Of the hundreds of DOE grants terminated last fall, very few have been able to successfully appeal the decisions and have their contracts reinstated, and I am very proud of our team for relentlessly demonstrating the performance of these internally-developed critical mineral technologies and how crucial it is to implement and scale these commercial facilities to support the national security of the United States and enable its energy dominance,” he said.
The Tonopah Flats Lithium Project has been supported by a multi-phase federal effort to advance first-of-kind critical mineral technologies. Initial bench-scale development and construction of an integrated demonstration facility were supported by a DOE grant awarded through the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Following successful operations at demonstration scale, the project was subsequently awarded the DOE grant through the Manufacturing Energy Supply Chain office.
For clean transportation and clean energy stakeholders, the announcement points to the increasingly connected nature of the battery economy. Battery-electric vehicles, stationary storage systems, consumer electronics, and other electrified technologies all depend on reliable access to critical minerals. ABTC’s work combines primary resource development, primary critical minerals manufacturing, and battery metals recycling as part of what the company describes as a circular supply chain for battery metals.
