Tesvolt starts production in 'first European gigafactory' for battery storage

German storage company Tesvolt says it has started production in "Europe's first gigafactory for commercial battery storage systems." The new production line, in the Eastern German town of Wittenberg, currently allows to produce storage systems with a total capacity of up to one megawatt hour (MWh) every day and 255 MWh per year, but the company said in a press release production in the factory can be ramped up to one gigawatt (GWh). "Tesvolt will be gradually adding capacity to account for the current increase in demand, seeing as its order volume has almost tripled since the same quarter last year." Demand has particularly spiked for storage systems with an emergency power function as well as for off-grid storage, Tesvolt said. The company specializes in lithium-ion-based battery storage for commercial enterprises.

Germany's rapidly rising share of weather-dependent renewable energy makes the country a testbed for storage technologies, to enable its use when there is only little or no sun or wind power available. Truly large-scale storage might not be essential for decades to come, but the technology has started to spread small-scale in the form of batteries in cars, homes and companies. Germany's energy storage sector recorded sales growth of 10 percent to 5.5 billion euros in 2019 and expects continued growth. Industrial applications recorded a particularly strong increase to 1.3 billion euros to become the energy storage industry's most important market segment.