Battery maker eyes expansion

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery producer Envision AESC is looking to accelerate its expansion in Europe with an eye on growing its global market share while planning ahead for an anticipated boom in sales of new energy vehicles.

Following plans announced in late June to build a $2.4 billion battery plant to supply French carmaker Renault in northern France, the Shanghai-based company declared in July it would make another investment of 423 million pounds ($576 million) to build a gigafactory at the Sunderland manufacturing site in the United Kingdom.

This would be part of a 1 billion pound flagship EV hub project with carmaker Nissan, a move to further expand its presence in Europe, as the continent ramps up production to achieve battery independence and embrace the EV boom.

Envision AESC, the battery unit of the Shanghai-based Envision Group, said the company aims to produce 9 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries in 2024 and 24 GWh by 2030 in France. It also pledged to create 1,000 local jobs by 2024 and 2,500 by the end of the decade. It said the investment in France will make its battery factory the first "gigafactory" in the country.

With three battery production bases located in Japan, the United States and the UK, Envision AESC is currently building its fourth production and research and development base in China's Wuxi, Jiangsu province, with an estimated annual production capacity of up to 20 GWh.

The first phase of its China plant has been finished and started mass production. The lithium-ion batteries provided by the company to the global market have served more than 600,000 EVs worldwide without one single major battery accident, it said.

Envision Group CEO Zhang Lei said the company's expansion into France is in consideration of France's economic scale, continuous investment in the green revolution and China-France economic ties.

While EU businesses which have a strong presence in China are bullish about the Chinese market, Chinese business communities are equally optimistic about business opportunities in France.

With as many as 1.3 million EVs sold in Europe last year, Europe is edging past China to become the world's largest EV market and appears set to maintain its lead.

Many Chinese battery makers are also eyeing Europe for further market expansion, including Ningde, Fujian province-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd, better known as CATL, and SVOLT Energy Technology, formerly the battery business unit of Great Wall Motor.

Envision has the same expansion plans for the continent.

As the whole world has been deploying resources to further bring down carbon intensity and enhance the functions of the carbon trading system, Envision Group vows to reap big dividends from sales of its advanced carbon-related net-zero solutions to companies across the world.

Zhang said the first phase of development in Europe will unlock future large-scale investment to grow the local supply chain and develop the whole life cycle opportunities of batteries, including energy storage, battery reuse, smart charging and closed loop recycling.

It has the potential to create thousands of new high value green jobs as part of an end-to-end battery ecosystem in the region. The company has also been holding in-depth discussions about technological cooperation with all major global automakers, he said.

"The battery plant is the beginning of our cooperation. We will have comprehensive strategic cooperation with Renault, including green factories, zero-carbon technology, and the deployment of a smart charging infrastructure in Europe. This is just a starting point," Zhang said.

Envision started its global journey by designing, producing, exporting and operating wind turbines. BloombergNEF said Envision Group commissioned 10.35 gigawatts of new wind turbine capacity globally in 2020 and has become the world's fourth-largest supplier in the category by market share.

Since its first smart wind turbine began to generate clean electricity in 2008, the company has put more than 12,500 wind turbines into operation, with a cumulative output of more than 150,000 GWh of clean electricity, cutting emissions by the equivalent of 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, it said.

The company has been exporting offshore and onshore smart wind turbines to countries including Argentina, France, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Indonesia to support their energy transition. It has established engineering centers and research and development facilities in the US, Germany, Denmark, Singapore and Japan.

Envision has been actively cooperating with French energy companies in recent years. TEESS, a 50/50 joint venture established by TotalEnergies and Envision Group, recently saw its solar projects for commercial and industrial customers in China generating more than 100 megawatts of energy. The total installed capacity of solar projects under construction and operation has reached 200 MW.

Analysts said major Chinese makers of EV-use lithium batteries have been setting up plants in Europe as well as the US in recent years. European governments are making heavy investments to expand their capacity in the EV battery sector to boost their presence in the supply chain, which has been dominated by Asian players, mainly from China and South Korea.

BloombergNEF estimates China will continue to dominate the supply chain through 2025.

China dominated BNEF's lithium-ion battery supply chain ranking in 2020, having quickly surpassed Japan and South Korea, the leaders for the majority of the previous decade.

"China's dominance of the industry is to be expected given its huge investments and the policies the country has implemented over the past decade," said James Frith, BNEF's head of energy storage.

"The next decade will be particularly interesting as Europe and the US try to create their own battery champions to challenge Asian incumbents who are already building capacity in both places. While Europe is launching initiatives to capture more of the raw material value chain, the US is slower to react on this."

The 2020 Global Wind Turbine Market Shares report released by BNEF in March said Envision, together with General Electric, Vestas and Goldwind, accounted for 51 percent of the 96.7 GW of wind turbines globally in 2020, compared with 60.7 GW in the previous year.

Envision alone commissioned more than 10 GW last year, with those abroad reaching 0.28 GW with exports to countries including France, Mexico and Argentina.

Estimates by CIC energiGUNE, a research center of electrochemical and thermal energy storage in Europe, said China is resolved to become the global leader in EVs, including EV battery production.

At present, about 80 percent of the world's lithium-ion battery cells are made in China, it said.