South African stationary energy storage battery systems company Blue Nova Energy officially opened its new combined head office and assembly facility in Somerset West, near Cape Town, on Friday. The company produces a range of systems based on lithium-iron-phosphate (LiFePO₄ for short) batteries and has to expand its facilities to meet growing demand, both in the domestic and export (especially, but not exclusively, other African) markets.

The company is focused on serving customers who need to store energy. Either because they are off-grid and rely on solar energy and need power at night, or to ensure their energy supply during periods of scheduled power cuts (called loadshedding in South Africa), or to be able to buy energy during off-peak times (cheap energy) and either use it themselves during peak (expensive energy) times, to save money, or sell that stored energy to others (energy arbitrage), to make money. “We’re a primary business-to-business company,” explained Blue Nova CEO James Verster.

Founded in 2015, since 2019 the company has been 51%-owned by the Reunert Group. Blue Nova currently employs about 110 people, including some 12 qualified engineers.

“We certainly don’t want to be just a factory,” he affirmed. “We’re going to be an engineering concern, with a manufacturing capacity. We’re fundamentally an engineering concern.”

Lithium batteries come in a wide range of types, he pointed out. What distinguishes them is their energy density and cycle life. Customers should choose the type that best suits the application they require. Blue Nova operates at the high end of the market, providing long-life high-performance systems. Its storage systems are all based on modules, each containing a number of battery cells.

The company produces mobile power systems, standard standalone storage systems, intelligent energy storage solutions, ‘RacPower’ daily use and/or backup power systems, a range of high voltage batteries, and battery racks. It also produces Battery Monitoring and Control units and Remote (battery) Monitoring and Control units. The former are co-located with their associated battery systems, the latter are distant from them. Both oversee the battery modules in their systems, monitoring and recording the data from all the battery cells and able to signal an alert when a cell begins to display degraded performance, thus giving early warning of failure.

The battery cells, Mobile Power Solutions and RacPower batteries used by the company are designed (to Blue Nova specifications) and manufactured in China. All its other products are manufactured in Somerset West. About 55%, by value, of the company’s products are manufactured in South Africa.