With the new battery storage factory in Wittenberg, the company wants to increase the annual production capacity at the site to 4GWh or 80,000 storage systems within the next year and a half. Tesvolt is thus responding to the increasing global demand for commercial storage systems.
Ten years after its founding, all signs point to green at Tesvolt and the company is investing massively in scaling its production capacities. After the successful growth of the photovoltaic home storage market and now also of large storage systems, the Wittenberg company now expects a massive increase in demand for medium-sized storage systems for commercial and industrial companies. For the next 6 years, market experts are expecting average annual growth of over 30% in the European battery storage market alone, according to Tesvolt.
On Monday, in bright sunshine, the two founders and managing directors Daniel Hannemann and Simon Schamert held the symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the new gigafactory in the presence of around 150 guests. In the future, the annual production capacity is expected to be four gigawatt hours, which corresponds to around 80,000 storage systems. This increases the current capacity tenfold. The opening of the first construction phase is planned for the end of 2025. In a second construction phase, a research and development center will be built in the next few years, which will be connected to the first building via a wide covered glass bridge.
Among the guests were Reiner Haseloff, CDU Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt, and Michael Kellner, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, from the Greens. The project is co-financed by the state through IGB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, as well as by the Principality of Lichtenstein. The investment volume for the first construction phase is initially 30 million euros for a new production facility and a fully automated high-bay warehouse.
The new production building will have two floors and enable highly automated production of battery storage systems. Among other things, robots are being integrated into the manufacturing process. In addition, the new factory will be operated entirely with self-produced green electricity. The new building in accordance with the KfW55 standard will also be heated electrically and in a CO2-neutral manner using air heat pumps and heat recovery. Excess electricity is to be collected in in-house Tesvolt battery storage systems. In addition to photovoltaic systems, small wind turbines on the edge of the roof are also used to generate electricity.
The expansion of production is taking place against the background of rapidly increasing competition from China on the battery storage market. Hannemann highlighted the safety of the systems as one factor that sets Wittenberg battery storage apart . For example, the new Infineon chips will be used in production, which were previously only available to the automotive industry and allow a new security architecture.
To date, Tesvolt has been producing indoor battery storage from prismatic NMC battery modules at the factory in Wittenberg, which are equipped with a battery management system, cycled and tested on site. The new container battery storage systems are manufactured at a second Wittenberg location. A total of 100 new employees were hired last year, explained Hannemann. In the future, the workforce is expected to grow to 400 employees.
