US-BRIC energy storage manufacturing factory opens in China

A Chinese and US joint venture has opened a factory to manufacture advanced energy storage products in China. Meineng Energy, which is a Chinese joint venture of an arm of US renewable energy power firm ZBB Energy and China’s Anhui XinDong Investment Management, has opened the factory in Wuhu, Anhui Province. The facility aims to drive production of energy storage for PV, wind energy and smart grid power distribution.

Construction started in building the factory in December last year. Called the Anhui Meineng Store Energy System Company advanced manufacturing centre, it is designed to have a production capacity rated at 100 MWh of energy storage and control products.

Meineng Energy produces energy storage and control systems ranging from 50 kWh to more than 5000 kWh. The facility’s 3,000sqm production area is configured with state-of-the-art equipment, designed to assemble and test ZBB advanced energy storage technology and control systems.

Brad Hansen, Meineng Energy GM and CEO, said: “Meineng Energy serves the China market, which is expected to be the largest in the world for the advanced energy storage and control systems. Our products will drive significant photovoltaic and wind energy system productivity increases, in addition to enabling the 3rd wave of energy storage adoption for intelligent microgrid and smart-grid based distributed energy systems,"

Dan Nordloh, ZBB energy executive vice president of Global Business Development, said, at the opening of the facility: “"China represents one of the fastest growing and most significant market opportunities in the world for energy storage, and we are well positioned to play a significant role in providing for China's energy storage requirements.

“While today marks the celebratory opening of the factory, ZBB Energy and Meineng Energy have been working closely for some time now to ensure the successful factory start-up, and will continue to collaborate as the production ramp continues.”