Chinese battery giant on hiring drive in South Africa

Chinese battery manufacturer BYD is advertising several jobs in its energy division in South Africa, suggesting the company has ambitions to tap into the local market for backup power systems.

MyBroadband found at least four positions at BYD Energy Storage advertised on online recruitment platforms in the past week.

The jobs were primarily sales-oriented and included positions as a renewable energy sales professional, energy storage business development manager, and a sales and marketing executive for renewable energy solutions.

The main focus of the positions seemed to be in utility-scale and industrial-scale applications and not in the residential market.

We asked BYD for comment on its energy business expansion plans in South Africa, but it did not provide feedback by the time of publication.

The government has held talks with BYD about potentially setting up a local factory.

According to trade, industry, and competition minister Parks Tau, the company expressed interest in working and investing in South Africa.

Tau said that South Africa offered extensive car production experience and had access to key battery resources like lithium and manganese.

President Cyril Ramaphosa also toured the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen in September 2024.

He said that South Africa presented a great opportunity for companies in Shenzhen to deepen their global value chains.

“With the capabilities that your companies have, we encourage you to play a more active role in our economy for mutual benefit,” Ramaphosa said.

“We are certain that companies such as BYD and CATL [another major battery company] will find South Africa a unique and advantageous location that can serve as a hub to reach other markets.”

While the company has recently become more recognisable outside China for its electric vehicles (EVs), which are challenging the dominance of the world’s biggest EV company Tesla, its origins are in battery technology.

Leading rechargeable battery maker

BYD was founded as Yadi Electronics in 1995, named after a street in the Dapeng New District, before its renaming to Shenzhen BYD Battery Company Limited.

The BYD part of the name comes from the pinyin initials of the Chinese name Biyadi. The “bi” was added to avoid brand duplication and to give the company an alphabetical advantage in trade shows.

BYD initially worked on rechargeable nickel-cadmium (NiCd) batteries and later on nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium-ion (Li-ion).

Leveraging cheaper manual labour instead of the automated robotic systems used by Japanese battery giants, it was able to manufacture its products at a substantially lower cost than the major incumbents.

By 2002, it was the world’s biggest NiCd producer, accounting for roughly 65% of the produced capacity. Seven years later, it was the second-largest NiMH producer and third-largest Li-ion cell manufacturer.

By 2012, it held more than 50% global market share in phone batteries and was in the top four of all rechargeable battery manufacturers.

In addition to stationary battery systems, BYD’s Blade technology for electric vehicles (EVs) has proven to be among the safest and most reliable and has been adopted by several carmakers — including Tesla.

In its home country of China, BYD is the largest privately-owned employer, with more than 900,000 staff.

BYD launched its automotive business in South Africa in mid-2023 and has expanded its offering to three fully-electric cars with big plans for more models in the coming year.

However, the rollout of its energy business could be more important when considering South Africa’s switch to renewables over the coming years and the vast amounts of energy storage it will require.

BYD’s batteries are already being used for the largest backup power system in South Africa

Scatec’s Kenhardt facility boasts a BYD BESS with 1,140MWh of storage capacity and a peak output of 225MW.

The energy storage is connected to the plant’s three solar farms, enabling them to provide 150MW of electricity from 05:00 in the morning until 21:00 at night.

The BESS consists of 456 2.5MWh units in container-sized enclosures, each weighing 30 tonnes.