The City Council's 'super energy hub'
Case reference FOI2023/00667
Published 13 February 2024
Request
What guarantees can the council give us that child labour has not been used within the supply chain in the production of its batteries for the 'Super Energy Hub'? What degree of certainty does the council have that no "blood cobalt" exists in its hybrid lithium/ vanadium batteries? When planning and designing the "Energy Super Hub' did the council use due diligence to investigate where its suppliers and how the natural resources were mined? Did the council question Pivot Power on where and how cobalt is mined for its batteries and whether the company was confident child labour wasn't used in te supply chain?
Response
The Council did not procure the batteries for the ESO project. The batteries were procured by Pivot Power.
In 2019 the Council asked Pivot Power to confirm that due diligence was being undertaken in respect of its battery supply chain/s.
Pivot power confirmed that they were using Wartsila to procure the lithium-ion batteries - policies relating to sustainability and human rights can be found on the link below.
https://www.wartsila.com/sustainability/our-approach/policies-and-commitments/policy-on-humanrights-equal-opportunities-and-fair-employment-practices
Vanadium batteries were provided by Invinity Systems (a project partner). Information around sourcing is shown below.
https://invinity.com/investors/environmental/
Documents
This is Oxford City Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.