BYD: EV-driven cost reductions essential for cost-effective energy storage

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email
BYD global sales director Julia Chen at a press event in March. Image: BYD.

Leaning on an existing track-record and manufacturing scale of electric vehicles (EVs) and their batteries remains an essential component to delivering cost-effective energy storage, BYD global sales director Julia Chen has said.

Chen was speaking with Energy-Storage.News at the Intersolar Europe / ees Europe trade show, which is taking place this week in Munich, Germany, where BYD was unveiling the latest iteration of its B-BOX residential to light commercial energy storage system.

The company remains best known in China as a prolific maker of EVs (and perhaps best known outside China as a Warren Buffet investment-backed venture) and is one of the few players thought to have the scale to rival Tesla in offering both electric transport and now stationary energy storage. According to Chen, BYD sold around 110,000 passenger model EVs in China last year alone.

“For the moment, battery demand is being driven by electrified transportation,” Chen said.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

Not ready to commit yet?
  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

“[The success of EVs] is a very strong driver for energy storage because by comparison, demand for batteries for stationary energy storage is very small. At BYD we try to use the platform we built for our EV batteries and bring these efforts and advantages to energy storage. This is the only way to do energy storage in a cost-effective way.”

BYD’s residential and light commercial B-BOX is available in a low voltage model which has been on the market for two years already, now joined by its high voltage counterpart. Chen touted the “modular, flexible and easy-to-install” B-BOX – claiming the lack of cabling required can reduce installation time to as little as 30 minutes – which can be scaled from 2.5kWh up to 410kWh.

“Our concept is that one product suits every application,” Chen said.

“With modular design we can start at 2.5kWh and people can expand [that] throughout its lifetime. For bigger systems, for commercial or for people who want to be independent, we give the solution from different parallel connections with different Sunny Islands (SMA inverters which are compatible with the B-BOX).”

Chen said the B-BOX is a versatile creature, with capabilities to aggregate systems together to provide grid services. The device can be discharged at the unusually fast rate of 2C for 15 minutes, while many residential systems only support discharge rates of 0.5C to 1C, which Chen claimed would not be fast enough for some grid-balancing programmes.

Read Next

October 8, 2025
Repurposing EV battery packs and modules into BESS obviously has environmental benefits, but challenges around pricing, performance and safety remain, panellists at an industry event in London said last week.
October 1, 2025
In a recently published interview with Energy-Storage.news Premium, CEO and President of Prevalon Energy, Thomas Cornell, spoke about the global consequences of the budget reconciliation bill.
September 23, 2025
BYD has presented its latest grid-scale BESS product, pushing energy density even further to its limits, while Eve and Sunwoda have progressed commercialisation of high capacity battery cells.
September 11, 2025
It’s still to early to see the financial impact on energy storage suppliers in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and legislation, writes Solar Media analyst Charlotte Gisbourne, analysing their H1 revenues.
September 2, 2025
The market share of vertically integrated battery cell and BESS companies has fallen since 2023, market intelligence firm Rho Motion said.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter