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UK offers nearly £10 million towards a £43 million plant to extract lithium from Cornish geothermal brine

Production is planned from 2029, at around 1,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year, the developer says. It is an offer in principle, not a final grant.

Grade One Newsroom · 1 min read

Sources: 1 · top grade 1How evidence is graded

£10m

UK offer towards a Cornish plant to extract battery lithium from geothermal brine

Grade 1 · Primary

Source: Department for Business and Trade (UK)

What changed
The UK government made an offer in principle of nearly £10 million to Geothermal Engineering Ltd for a £43 million lithium extraction plant in Cornwall.
Who it counts
One project: Geothermal Engineering's planned plant, which would extract lithium carbonate from underground geothermal brine for electric-vehicle batteries.
What it does not tell you
Whether the plant will be built and produce as planned. The output and job figures are projections, and the offer is in principle.

The full story Check the source

The UK government has made an offer in principle worth nearly £10 million to Geothermal Engineering Limited towards a lithium extraction plant in Cornwall, it announced on 27 September [1].

The company plans to invest around £43 million in the plant, which would extract lithium carbonate from geothermal brine underground [1].

The offer comes from the government's DRIVE35 Automotive Transformation Fund. It also made an offer in principle of £18.3 million to Tees Valley Lithium for a £185 million refinery in Teesside [1].

What it covers

One planned plant. Commercial production is due to begin in 2029, at around 1,500 tonnes of technical-grade lithium carbonate a year, which the release says is enough for more than 180,000 typical EV batteries [1].

The government says the plant will create nearly 50 direct jobs and support around 80 more in the supply chain [1].

What it does not tell you

Whether it will be built as planned. An offer in principle is not a final grant, and the production, battery and jobs figures are projections [1].

What it will cost to produce lithium this way, or how that compares with imports. The release gives no cost figures [1].

Sources and their grades

  1. Department for Business and Trade (UK), New lithium mine in Cornwall to unlock Britain's industrial potential and support skilled jobs. Read 29 September 2026. Grade 1 · Primary Published 27 September 2026. The government's offer is grade 1; the production, battery and jobs figures are the project's own projections (grade 5).

A grade says how much weight a source will take, from 1 (a body that can compel an answer and has nothing to sell) to 5 (somebody describing what they sell, or themselves). The standard sets out what each grade may be used for.

Filed under Batteries Critical minerals UK

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