Hithium will supply its latest 6.25MWh DC block products to engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company Solarpro, for projects in Eastern Europe.
Chinese vertically integrated lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery manufacturer Hithium focuses on the stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) space exclusively.
The company announced the deal with Solarpro, a subsidiary of Austrian clean energy investor Renalfa Solarpro Group, yesterday (25 September).
A framework signing ceremony took place in Madrid, Spain (pictured above), for the 2GWh master supply agreement (MSA). Under this agreement, Hithium will supply Solarpro with systems for projects in Eastern European countries, including but not limited to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and North Macedonia.
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In July, Renalfa IPP, a renewable energy independent power producer (IPP) and investment joint venture (JV) established by Solarpro parent and infrastructure fund manager RGreen Invest secured a financing package worth €315 million (US$367 million) for a development portfolio comprising 1.6GW of renewable energy and 3.3GWh of battery storage across the same countries named by Hithium in yesterday’s announcement.
Renalfa IPP gave the total investment required for the projects at €1.2 billion. The recent financing package was provided by a consortium of lenders led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
A month prior, in June, Energy-Storage.news reported that Renalfa IPP had begun the commercial operation of Bulgaria’s largest BESS project to date, a 25MW/55MWh system co-located with a 33MWp solar PV plant. Hithium and Chinese power electronics company Kehua provided the energy storage technology for the project.
In parallel, Chinese BESS supplier Sungrow signed a 2.4GWh deal focused on projects in Bulgaria with PV solutions provider SUNOTEC this summer.
Each of those Eastern European countries is seeing a combination of market-driven opportunity for energy storage, particularly in pairing with renewable energy to reduce curtailment and grid congestion, along with funding unlocked by the European Union (EU).
Bulgaria launched tenders for 1,425MW of renewable energy and 350MW of battery storage in March 2024 and a 3GWh standalone BESS tender in December; Romania committed capex funding support to 2.5GWh of energy storage earlier this year; the EU approved a similar €1.1 billion support scheme for Hungary in 2023 with the country’s largest BESS, at 80MWh, coming online a couple of months ago.
Not much energy storage activity appears to have been publicly announced as yet from North Macedonia, meanwhile, but the country is pursuing a 1.7GW renewable energy target by 2030 and closing all coal generation by that time.
Large-format cells for long(er)-duration applications
Perhaps it is notable, from a global technology trend perspective, that the latest deal sees Hithium supply Solarpro with its latest BESS solution, which features 587Ah and 1175Ah large-format lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells.
The batteries at Solarpro’s Eastern Europe projects will be designed to perform long-duration energy storage (LDES) applications, which Hithium said would make them most effective in helping balance the integration of variable renewable energy (VRE) to the grid.
Hithium’s ∞Power 6.25MWh BESS DC block was launched to the market at Intersolar Europe / ees Europe in Germany in May. The 587Ah cells are used for the shorter-duration 2-hour configuration, and 1175Ah cells to meet 4-hour duration requirements, highlighting the loose definition of ‘long-duration’ in today’s market, given that the LDES label is more commonly applied to durations ranging from 6-hour to 24-hour.
Hithium began mass production of the 1175Ah cells—claimed as the first 1000Ah+ cells in the industry—in June from its factory in Chongqing, central China. The company announced its first project deal for the 1175Ah cell technology in August, for 4GWh of projects in Saudi Arabia with the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC).
At the time, Hithium’s kilowatt-hour cell seemed like a high watermark for the competition between Chinese manufacturers and system integrators to pursue higher energy density from cell to system level.
This competition has seen the industry standard of 314Ah form factor LFP cells joined on the market over the past year or so by 500Ah and 600Ah+ cells. Among them are EVE Energy, which recently claimed it had deployed the first project in the world to use 628Ah cells. Sunwoda began mass production of a 684Ah cell earlier this year.
Then last week, the BESS division of electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD unveiled a unit featuring 2710Ah BYD Blade Battery cells, packing the equivalent of 10MWh of capacity into a 20-foot area.
