Solar MD launches first gigawatt battery plant in Africa

Daniel Puchert

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Cape Town solar company launches Africa's first gigawatt battery plant

Energy storage company Solar MD has officially opened the first gigawatt factory on the continent, capable of producing up to 3GWh of energy storage annually.

The 15,000-square-metre factory, located in Cape Town, has been operational since July. However, it was officially inaugurated on Saturday, 30 November 2024.
 
I'm going to guess they assemble batteries from cells manufactured in China. I will be impressed if they roll their own.

And I'll bet there's VC money behind them with an eye on those juicy Eskom tenders loaded with local-procurement rules.

Nothing wrong with that until they lobby for and get import protection.
 
SolarMD are great. We have been using one of their batteries in the office for the last 3 years. The only issue is that other manufacturers are bringing down cost way quicker than SolarMD... where they used to be a cost effective option, the likes of Volta are wiping the floor at the moment. I ended up going with Volta for my home install. I really hope that SolarMD are able to turn the new factory into a cost advantage and compete better.

Cheapest SolarMD 14.2kWh battery I can find... R54K
Cheapest Volta Stage 4 14.2 kWh I can find... R40K
 
Yeah, I see that - 2014. Freedom won started manufacturing batteries in 2010, but either their marketing has been better or they have just made better batteries. When I got my system three years ago I would have only considered FW, Hubble or Pylontech. I chose FW for the 10 year warranty. Pylon were offering 5 at the time IIRC. Nobody quoted me on Solar MD.
 
"...capable of producing up to 3GWh of energy storage annually".

I don't want to be negative but that's about 6 mins of Eskom's peak output. So they will produce enough batteries annually to keep the grid going for about 5mins.

Which gives one an idea of just how much energy storage would be required to completely power the grid on renewables when the sun isn't shining or the wind blowing.
 
Why are you posting links to online scams?
Why would you say its an online scam?
 
Solar MD uses CATL cells which are very well known in the industry. The rest is all designed/built in-house.

BMS is their own design and software. Mechanical work, welding, programming, you name it they do it themselves. I've been to the factory it's impressive.
 
Solar MD uses CATL cells which are very well known in the industry. The rest is all designed/built in-house.

Sorry to be a grinch but "the rest" is the boring part. That's just bagging the Nik Naks.

I'm not much of a hawk but it's a growing national security imperative around the world that countries in-shore lithium cell manufacturing.

Speaking of which does SA have a single semiconductor foundry?
 
Sorry to be a grinch but "the rest" is the boring part. That's just bagging the Nik Naks.

I'm not much of a hawk but it's a growing national security imperative around the world that countries in-shore lithium cell manufacturing.

Speaking of which does SA have a single semiconductor foundry?
Sorry, I’m not sure I understand. Why would a semiconductor foundry be needed in this context? From what I know, a foundry isn’t directly involved in manufacturing a BMS. The components, like ICs, are typically off-the-shelf and sourced from existing suppliers. PCB designs are then sent to a manufacturer for fabrication and assembly.

That said, I can see how a local foundry might be relevant if we were talking about designing custom ICs to optimize the BMS for cost or performance, or as part of a broader strategy for securing the supply of critical components. Is that what you were referring to?
 
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