German start-up Tesvolt is building a battery factory that it claims will be the first in Europe to have an output capacity of more than one gigawatt hours (GWh) of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) based power storage capacity.

A first phase of the plant in Wittenberg, Germany, with 12,000 square metres of floor space will be finished in June, and by the final phase, annual production will have reached over one GWh in an area of 20,000 square metres.

Li-ion based storage systems are used both in electric vehicles and to store electricity from excess solar production on rooftops, the mainstay of Germany’s solar PV capacity.

“The world market for stationary energy storage systems has already reached a total capacity of 16 GWh,” Tesvolt co-founder Daniel Hannemann said.

“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.”

While the demand for battery storage is rising fast in Europe, the continent so far depends heavily on battery imports from Asia.

The new Tesvolt facility, despite being labelled a ‘gigafactory’, will be much smaller than the one US carmaker Tesla is still expanding in the Nevada desert, where in mid-2018 it reached an annualised rate of about 20GWh - making it the highest-volume battery plant in the world.

The German plant will compete with a series of battery storage projects planned or in construction across Europe, such as the large plant planned in Sweden by start-up Northvolt and ABB that has wind turbine OEM Vestas as partner.

The technology for the factory’s new semi-automated production line comes from teamtechnik, a mechanical engineering company known for equipping many reputable automobile manufacturers with production and testing lines.

“Well-versed in both hardware and software, teamtechnik’s cooperation ensures efficient and safe serial production of battery storage systems,” said Tesvolt, noting that “every battery module will be automatically tested for full functionality, and data from each process step will be recorded for seamless retracing capability”.

Tesvolt produces power storage systems with lithium battery cells from Samsung SDI, based on nickel manganese cobalt oxide. The company says the gigafactory is designed for carbon-neutral storage production, with power to supply it coming from a PV plant with a 200kWp power output.

Transition

Tesvolt to build PV-powered battery gigafactory in Germany