The race to build Europe’s first lithium-ion energy storage system ‘Gigafactory’ could be won by Tesvolt, as the German manufacturer announced a “multimillion-euro investment” in production lines this week.
Promising fully carbon neutral production of the company’s battery energy storage systems, which have been used both on and off-grid in more than 1,000 projects already, Tesvolt’s factory will be “fully supplied by solar energy”, the company claims.
This will include a 200kWp PV system to power offices and system production lines, paired with a 350kWh Tesvolt energy storage system. Heat pumps using a natural refrigerant will mean the facilities’ heating also comes from solar. Mechanical engineering company teamtechnik will fit out the factory’s semi-automated production line. The facility will have an annual production capacity of over 1GWh when completed.
Tesvolt’s battery systems were recently installed at Britain’s largest subsidy-free solar farm to date, with the energy storage thought to be a key part of the project’s business plan. Similarly, Tesvolt said it is “financing its multi-million Euro investment in the gigafactory without any outside funding”, although it is accepting a small amount of EU support worth 10% of the cost.
The company did not give a timeline for completion of the production lines, although it says 12,000 sqm of floor space will be ready next month and that by the final phase of construction the production space will total 20,000sqm. Tesvolt expects employee numbers to roughly double by then from today’s workforce of 60. As with the majority of its competitors, Tesvolt does not make its own battery cells and has sourced nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cells from Samsung SDI in the past.
“The world market for stationary energy storage systems has already reached a total capacity of 16GWh. Europeans are calling for an end to harmful coal-fired power plants and diesel scandals. They want a future free of environmental disasters. We want the gigafactory to be our contribution to reaching this goal, making clean and affordable energy possible anywhere in the world,” Tesvolt co-founder and CEO Daniel Hannemann said.
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