Energy storage company Balancell has inaugurated its battery gigafactory that it recently moved into. The factory was opened by the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Andrew Whitfield, on the 24th of October 2024, and attended by over 100 guests, which included shareholders and founding investor Andrew McPherson and CEO/CTO Dr Ian de Vries, other investors, suppliers and delegates from companies that have already invested in the energy storage batteries manufactured by Balancell.

The company has moved into the new R80-million factory in Ndabeni, Cape Town so as to gear up to grow its capacity roughly tenfold. The lithium ferro-phosphate battery assembler’s previous plant was limited to 250MWh capacity a year, with the new facility scaling that up to between 2 GWh and 3 GWh a year.

“We were rated the fastest growing manufacturing business in Africa by the Financial Times for 2024. In addition to this, some of our first industrial batteries that were put into the market have gone through their five-year warranty periods, and after five years they have had more than 20 000 hours of operation. That’s more than 11 hours to 12 hours a day for five years,” said founding investor Andrew McPherson.

Charging of the lithium batteries

“These batteries are still sitting at 90% capacity. Currently, we have close to 5 000 batteries operating to specification, and we are recording every minute of their operation through our energy platform.”

As an example, Ian Pieters, Balancell’s CCO, talked about the industrial motor batteries they have installed in Balancell’s biggest customer, Toyota Material Handling, a subsidiary of CFAO in South Africa.

“Toyota took a positive view on our lithium-based product and installed them in Toyota’s forklifts to replace the lead-acid batteries. We had to be inventive because lithium batteries are much lighter and the forklifts need the weight for balance. So we added recycled metal ingots to counter-balance.”

“They have to operate in one of the toughest battery environments to work in. Forklifts have to operate 24 seven, have multiple recharges a day, are exposed to temperatures from hot warehouses to cold store rooms. They have no suspension, but they are still driven like rally cars. We now have over 4 000 forklift batteries in the field and across the whole supply chain in South Africa. Some of the food you eat would have been lifted by a forklift with our battery.”

Balancell are installing a new electronic press brake soon to replace the current one which is tired

“Lithium ferro-phosphate batteries are generally regarded as more stable and less temperature sensitive in lithium chemistry. Coupled with Balancell’s three-tiered safety features, embedded into the battery, the fire risk is significantly lower,” explained Pieters.

“I think we have only scratched the surface of what is possible, as a lot of traditionalists are stuck on using lead-acid batteries in their forklifts, especially in Europe.”

Balancell formally started at the beginning of 2013.

In his speech Dr Ian de Vries said: “Our battery design and factory line are totally unique and offer advantages that we can capitalise on to get into the bigger race. For example, our batteries have been designed to be simple to assemble. They are robust and easily repairable. And together this makes them easily recyclable. This is becoming more relevant in the new forward into future battery requirements, in particular the Digital Battery Passport.”

“This unique, simple design means that a typical battery can be assembled by hand in one hour, starting from raw cells to a battery ready for charging.”

A big investment has been in the laser welder which is being operated by a Fanuc robot. This will allow Balancell to have very little fettling of the boxes and less human touch. The company is busy running tests in this department and they have engaged an integration company to do a feasibility plan for them to expand into using multiple robot laser welders

“This unique assembly line has also allowed us to build a factory with an annual production capacity of 2 to 3 gigawatt hours, for considerably less than most others. What you can see today in the factory is the electronics and battery manufacturing, but it is only the last part of a bigger supply chain as we have multiple local suppliers, from plastic injection moulders to suppliers of laminated interlinks and aluminium extrusions.”

“In fact, only the IC chips and the cells themselves are imported. Everything else is manufactured locally.”

“What you can physically see on the factory is also only half the technology. The other half is firmware, algorithms, connectivity and software. We knew this side would be critical from the beginning.”

“One of the drivers on the factory floor is for us to automate wherever it adds value.”

“We are installing a new electronic press brake soon to replace the current one which is tired. But the other big investment is in the laser welder which is being operated by a Fanuc robot. This will allow us to have very little fettling of the boxes and less human touch. We are busy running tests in this department and we have engaged an integration company to do a feasibility plan for us to expand into multiple robot laser welders.”

“On the floor we have an example a 150 kilowatt hour battery configuration. It can easily take any industrial commercial business predominantly off the grid or allow them to be less reliant on the grid, provide backup storage and critical storage to sensitive equipment or production machines.”

“On the floor we have an example 150 kilowatt hour battery configuration. It can easily take any industrial commercial business predominantly off the grid or allow them to be less reliant on the grid, provide backup storage and critical storage to sensitive equipment or production machines.”

“More importantly the technology is working towards providing clean power for production equipment.”

Balancell has also designed these batteries to be almost as energy dense as other lithium chemistries. Balancell’s expansion project is driven by strong demand for energy storage products locally and globally. This demand is then also driving Balancell’s expansion into the rest of Africa and Europe.

For further details contact Balancell on TEL: 021 551 1883 or visit www.balancell.com