When will Africa get its first gigantic battery factory?
Africa doesn’t have a supersized battery factory of its own — at least not yet.
The idea of “gigafactories” capable of producing batteries that can store at least 1 billion watt-hours of electricity, or roughly enough to go into 16,000 Tesla Inc. Model 3 electric cars, became popular after Elon Musk used the term for his first sprawling battery facility in Nevada.
Today there are hundreds of battery factories at this scale across Asia, North America and Europe.
China, by far the world leader in battery production, has at least 180 large battery factories.
Emerging economies such as Mexico and Thailand have some big battery plants as well.
So far, however, there are none of significant size in Africa or South America, even though developing countries on both continents are important sources of the metals that are essential for producing electric vehicle batteries.
That could change following an agreement announced last week between Chinese battery manufacturer Gotion High-Tech Co. and the Kingdom of Morocco.
The memorandum of understanding envisions the first factory for EV batteries in Africa, with an annual capacity of 100 gigawatts, backed by an investment of €6 billion ($6.4 billion).
Gotion is one of the world’s 10 largest battery manufacturers and listed on both China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange and on the Zurich Stock Exchange in Switzerland.
Following this initial step both Gotion and the government aim to sign an investment agreement, according to Mohcine Jazouli, Morocco’s delegate minister in charge of investment and public policies.
The project will contribute to “decarbonization and the deployment of innovative energy solutions,” said Gotion President Li Zhen said in a statement released by Morocco’s investment agency.
The crucial refineries and factories that transform raw lithium, cobalt or manganese into battery components aren’t always located in the countries that produce these energy-transition metals.
The bulk of the supply chain — and the revenue that comes with it — is found mainly in China, South Korea, Japan, Europe and the US.
There are few prospects that the big picture will change in coming years.
No African nations are expected to add any lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity through 2027, according to the latest report by research firm
BloombergNEF that tracks announcements made through October 2022.
Morocco ranks 28th out of 30 countries that
BloombergNEF tracks for activity in the lithium battery supply chain.
If completed, the Gotion factory in Morocco would be among the world’s largest.
It would be equivalent to a third of the capacity of the top global battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd., and would surpass the current total for installed capacity in the US.
Projects such as Gotion’s could help attract investment in clean technologies in Africa, which ranks last as a destination for green investment.
Processing battery materials close to the source could help lower supply-chain emissions, according to a
BloombergNEF report that looked at the cobalt value chain in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A plant to process raw cobalt into cathode precursors that could then be integrated into batteries would cost $39 million in the DRC — a fraction of the cost in the US — while cutting 30% of emissions associated with production.
Tsingshan to invest in 50,000 t/y lithium project in Zhejiang province
China’s Tsingshan Group said on Tuesday its unit Zhejiang Dinson Holding will invest in a 50,000 tonnes per year lithium carbonate project in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.
Dinson Holding has signed a cooperation agreement with Dongtou district under Wenzhou city, where the world’s top nickel and stainless steel producer is headquartered, according to a post on Tsingshan’s official wechat account.
China, with an output of 395,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate in 2022, is the world’s top smelter of the metal chiefly used in new energy vehicles and the energy storage sectors.
Tsingshan-owned Yongqing Technology and new energy companies including GEM and Zhejiang Weiming Environment Protection, invested 8 billion yuan ($1.12 billion)in Dongtou to build up a battery material industry park, according to a notice by Wenzhou government in March.
Tsingshan also has access to lithium resources via its investment in Zimbabwe.
China’s EV battery sector is preparing a new breakthrough
One of China’s top battery-makers reckons it has cracked a technology to provide even cheaper and more powerful packs for electric vehicles.
Gotion High-Tech Co. recently unveiled a lithium-iron-manganese-phosphate battery — LMFP for short — which it says will power an EV for 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) on each charge. Until now, it’s largely the more expensive nickel-cobalt batteries have provided that kind of range.
“It’s an upgrade, it’s a leap for energy density,” Cheng Qian, executive president of Gotion’s international business unit, said in a phone interview from Tokyo.
Gotion has been ramping up overseas expansions, from planning a battery plant in Michigan state to raising a global depositary receipts offering in Switzerland last year.
The company was the world’s 8th-largest battery manufacturer last year, according to SNE Research.
Astroinno joins some other significant battery innovations by Chinese companies in recent years. In 2020, BYD launched its Blade battery — an LFP unit with sleeker shape and improved energy density.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. is developing what it calls a condensed-state battery.
Among advantages will be an ability for fast charging that could take just shade more than a quarter of an hour, according to Gotion’s Cheng.
“You can have a cup of coffee and rest at the charging station, and the battery will be charged from 10% to 80% within 18 minutes using the step charging,” he said.
www.mining.com/category/battery-metals/
Food for thought
Frank
