The company Prime Batteries Technology intends to increase its production capacity of electric batteries tenfold this year, up to 2 GW, said Vicențiu Ciobanu, the company’s CEO, at the conference “More renewables for Romania”, organized by Energynomics.
“In the next period, we will expand our production capacity. Now we produce 200 MW per year, but we are trying to reach 2 GWh in 2023. But it’s difficult because the equipment supply chain is terrible,” said Ciobanu.
The company has made the energy transition a priority for Romania, and currently owns the first certified and commissioned dispatchable storage facility, with a capacity of 18 MWh.
“It was a two-and-a-half-year project in which we invested our own resources. Major projects will be done this year, and our challenge is to exceed the level of 250 MW installed in batteries in Romania”, he added.
According to Ciobanu, this market is evolving very aggressively, just as aggressive is the deadline for reaching pollution neutrality, 2050, and the transition to renewable energies is “the ultimate test that humanity must pass”.
Currently, the existing energy structure is not ready to ensure the high energy consumption required by charging so many electric vehicles, and the energy “is not as dark green or light green as presented by technical studies”.
“However, we are all aware that the major problem of renewable energy is intermittency, and that is why energy storage is essential in this transition,” Ciobanu said.
Electricity storage can be done in several ways and using several technologies, but the advantages of Li-Ion batteries are the implementation time, relatively low cost compared to other technologies and modularity, i.e. the possibility to install from a few kWh to hundreds or thousands of MWh as is already happening in the USA.
The conference “More renewables for Romania” was organized by Energynomics with the support of our partners among which ABB, ACE Industrial Software, BCR, Consolight, Eaton Electric, Elektra Renewable Support, EnergoPower, European Energy, Finder, Geminox, Huawei, ING Bank, LAPP Romania, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Phoenix Contact, Photomate, Prime Batteries Technology, REI Grup, Renomia-Gallagher, Valmont, Volt, Wiren România, Wise Finance Solutions.