Charged by load-shedding
Eskom’s troubles have provided the impetus for a company to produce batteries for long-suffering South Africans
● The value of storing electricity becomes more obvious to South Africans with every power outage, so it makes business sense that within three months of breaking ground in January 2022, Swedish company Polarium was assembling and selling lithium-ion batteries out of new premises at Marconi Beam, an industrial park in Cape Town.
By the end of this year, the company expects to double production capacity and staffing.
Polarium GM Etienne Gerber says conditions in South Africa, the rest of Africa and around the world have created a “perfect storm for energy storage”. The world is moving to renewable energy, but without efficient storage systems there will be no renewable revolution.
At the Polarium factory just north of Century City, about 100 new jobs have been created, training is being done and a local supplier has started exporting its product to a Polarium facility in Mexico. The company has a third factory in Vietnam.
Artificial intelligence is playing a role too, with assemblers using intelligent screwdrivers. The factory has been certified by the International Organisation for Standardisation, says Gerber.
The $30m investment follows a pledge made at the South Africa Investment Conference, a multiyear effort led by President Cyril Ramaphosa to attract investment. The last of four annual conferences making up the first drive was held this month.
Polarium has attracted investors, achieving unicorn status (a valuation of $1bn) in 2022. Through the first four cycles of the conference, a total of 236 pledges to invest were made. Polarium’s factory is bricks-and-mortar evidence of follow-through.
Tshepo Ramodibe, head of corporate affairs at the Industrial Development Corp, says 39.5% of the pledges made at the conference have been spent on projects despite Covid, disrupted supply chains and South Africa’s energy constraints. This amounts to R450.3bn.
Eskom’s problems are often cited as a brake on possible investment, but companies offering solutions are especially welcome, says Ramodibe, and are additionally attractive when investments give South Africans a chance to work in “globally relevant sectors”.
The new factory sparks reflection about some views of the national economy that have taken root. Polarium clearly has not received the memo about South Africa no longer being the “gateway to Africa”. Gerber says: “[The rest of] Africa is a huge market for us,” and gives a list that begins with Niger and includes Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi and Kenya, and ends with Zambia.
Polarium’s biggest market is in telecommunications, especially through a bulk purchase agreement with American Tower Corp. This organisation has a big presence in Africa, where backup power is vital and both lead batteries and diesel are expensive and dirty options.
For staff, the company looked to the Eastern Cape,
where the motor industry has created a pool of people with experience in manufacturing. Filling posts that require electronic skills took a bit longer, and getting the right people in quality management was more difficult.
Gerber says the company’s biggest seller is the 12.6kWh battery. Its important customers are hotels and shopping malls in the commercial and industrial sectors.
Though the company is not looking at utility-scale products, the lightweight and surprisingly small 178kWh battery packs a punch. Polarium intends using that model to run its factory overnight once it starts generating its own power from rooftop solar panels.
The normal cycle life of these batteries is doubled by nickel, manganese and cobalt technology. The batteries are recyclable and the Marconi Beam factory is aiming at the status of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Gerber is an electronics engineer; he came to the business park named after an electrical engineer by way of a master’s degree from the University of Pretoria, a stint as head of Vodafone’s innovation centre and work on fuel-cell and flow batteries related to mineral beneficiation. When the large US company he worked for sold Gerber’s division, he became MD of the South African firm before Polarium came calling.
Gerber says that for him making a “meaningful difference” is rewarding, as he is creating employment “by manufacturing high-quality, sustainable energy products in South Africa, for South Africans”.
About 100 new jobs have been created and much training is being done