John Flint, of UK Infrastructure Bank, said: “Globally the supply of lithium is far outpaced by demand, and yet in the UK it remains a nascent market.
“Our investment… will greatly accelerate domestic production of a mineral which is critical to the future of EV battery production and decarbonisation of the transport sector.”
Treasury minister Andrew Griffith said the deal fits the UK’s net zero ambitions.
“It’s levelling up the Cornish economy… but it’s also really important to securing mineral supply,” he said.
Cornish Lithium founder and CEO Jeremy Wrathall, said he was “delighted” at the investment “from institutional investors with the financial muscle to bring our projects into commercial production”.
“This funding will enable us to progress our Trelavour hard rock lithium project to a construction-ready status, as well as complete the engineering design work required to build a demonstration-scale geothermal waters extraction facility,” Mr Wrathall added.