Cornish Lithium receives government funding to progress geothermal
The government is giving £7.2mln to Cornish Lithium as partial funding for a £14.5mln drilling and testing programme.
Digital renderings of the Cross Lanes Geothermal Lithium Project
© Cornish LithiumThe DRIVE 35 government funding is expected to advance the technical and economic viability of commercial production at the Cross Lanes Geothermal Lithium project and enable further appraisal drilling in Cornwall.
The programme is being delivered by the Department for Business Innovation, Science and Trade, in partnership with the advanced propulsion centre and Innovate UK.
Cornish Lithium state that their projects are aligned with the UK Government's Industrial Strategy, Growth Sector strategies and the recently published Critical Minerals Strategy, which identifies lithium as essential to the energy transition with a domestic lithium production target of 50,000t per year by 2035.
Exploration drilling and testing in 2023 established the presence of lithium-enriched geothermal waters circulating naturally through underlying rock formations at the Cross Lanes Geothermal Lithium Project site, near Chacewater.
In 2025, the company secured planning consent for the development of this site including further phases of testing and evaluation.
The mining company says the funding will allow it to drill two 2,000m production wells and operate a Direct Lithium Extraction demonstration plant at Cross Lanes as well as drill an appraisal well at the adjacent Baldhu site to confirm the existence of additional lithium resources.
The full planning application/consent and associated documents can be viewed on the Cornwall Council planning register under PA24/06661.
More about the Cross Lanes Geothermal Lithium Project.
