Athens-headquartered battery maker Sunlight has announced a €50 million investment plan, with €30 million of it allocated for the production of lead-acid batteries.
That will give the company “the largest output in the world for motive power lead-acid-flooded products,” said Sunlight, adding the investment would see the lead-acid output capability of its fab in Xanthi, northern Greece, rise from 4 GWh to 5.3 GWh per year.
Sunlight also has a 25,000-tons-per-year recycling plant for lead-acid batteries in Komotini from which it aims to source 60% of its lead-acid material requirements. The business owns battery assembly facilities in Verona, in Italy; and in North Carolina, in the U.S.
Circular manufacturing
Circular manufacturing has been a focus of one of the UP Initiative’s quarterly themes. We considered whether adopting a circular approach could create a competitive edge and reap financial and reputational rewards. pv magazine also investigated what is already being done in the solar industry. Contact up@pv-magazine.com to find out more.
The balance of the €50 million cash injection will go into lithium-ion battery output, with Sunlight describing itself as a lithium-ion supplier on its LinkedIn page. That €20 million is set to fund 1.7 GWh of annual lithium-ion battery assembly capacity, in the form of three “assembly lines for lithium modules and complete lithium battery systems, as well as one assembly line for prototyping and R&D purposes.”
Popular content
The raised lithium-ion assembly capacity is expected to enter production before October next year and Sunlight said it has reserved space to more than double its annual output to “almost 4 GWh.”
R&D efforts
The Greek government will provide €49.9 million towards the cost of Sunlight's planned lithium-ion R&D center in Athens – with some likely to come from EU funds – after the European Commission’s directorate-general for competition last year approved the subsidy, under the EU's state aid rules. Sunlight will pay the remaining €55.3 million cost of the facility.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.