Energy5.02.2025

Inside South Africa’s biggest battery factory

MyBroadband recently got a tour of Freedom Won’s impressive factory in Edenvale, one of the three biggest battery assembly plants in South Africa.

Freedom Won was founded by Lizette Kriel and Antony English in 2011 and was one of the country’s earliest adopters of batteries with lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) chemistry.

LiFePO4 has a more stable structure than lithium-ion, providing greater cycle life and better safety.

The company had to work hard to convince the general public and valuable commercial clients that the technology was far better and more cost-effective over the long term than lead-acid, the prevailing chemistry for backup energy storage at the time.

Freedom Won has become one of South Africa’s most sought-after battery brands, with a wide range of models for home, business, commercial, and industrial applications.

According to a recent Jaltech Fund Management survey of 288 solar installers and engineering, procurement, and construction companies in South Africa, it was the most widely preferred battery brand in the country.

Around 30% of respondents said they prefferred Freedom Won’s batteries, double the 15% share of second-placed SunSynk.

Freedom Won’s premium batteries are assembled using the latest components and manufacturing processes.

Its primary offering is its Lithium To Energy or LiTE range, with capacities ranging from 5kWh to 800kWh. For commercial and utility-scale installations, its new Megatower series supports up to 5,900kWh capacity.

Freedom Won also offers a custom marine battery for below deck operations and general-purpose mobile applications, with capacities from 5kWh to 30kWh.

The company’s batteries are assembled at a 48,000m² facility in Modderfontein, Edenvale, previously used by Pick n Pay as a distribution centre.

When considering space occupancy, it is the largest battery assembly plant in the country.

It produces roughly 150 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage every month, which works out to about 1,800MWh or 1.8 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in a year.

However, the facility is capable of manufacturing up to 3.5GWh capacity in a year, the most of any battery assembly plant in South Africa.

There are roughly 340 employees at the plant working across its various operations — including cell welding, battery assembly, research and design, and troubleshooting and repairs.

South Africa has no battery cell manufacturing capability, so local assemblers must import this component from countries like China, which have established strong supply chains for critical cell minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese.

However, Freedom Won told MyBroadband that around 50% to 60% of its battery packs are made in South Africa.

Testament to its belief in its own products is that the facility runs off a 2MWh Freedom Won battery system connected to a massive rooftop solar power system, which caters for a substantial part of the facility’s electricity demand.

Below are images from our Freedom Won factory tour in January 2025, with captions describing the basic flow of the assembly process.