Newly established Formosa Smart Energy Tech Corp (台塑新智能科技) on Tuesday said it would invest NT$16 billion (US$536.7 million) on building a green energy production base in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區).
The investment would focus on a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery factory, said the company, which was launched by Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團).
An LFP battery and module factory with production capacity of 2.1 gigawatt-hours (GWh) would be established in the first phase, with mass production scheduled to start in the first half of 2024, Formosa Smart Energy chairwoman Sandy Wang (王瑞瑜) told a news conference in Changhua City.
Photo: Chang Hui-wen, Taipei Times
The second phase would boost production capacity to 5GWh, Wang said, without disclosing a timeline.
The production base is to cover about 6.1 hectares.
Before the planned factory starts mass production, a lithium iron battery module production line would be set up at the Changhua plant of Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖), a listed subsidiary of FPG, to meet the needs of the new energy market, the company said.
The production line would serve as a trial site, it said.
Formosa Plastics started its battery manufacturing business more than 10 years ago, Wang said, adding that its lithium iron battery cells and modules have passed safety standard certification.
The conglomerate has also been negotiating with electric vehicle manufacturers, Wang said.
Formosa Smart Energy president Liu Hui-chi (劉慧啟) said that annual demand for batteries in Taiwan is expected to reach 7.21GWh by 2030, while global demand is forecast to reach 3,000GWh.
In addition to producing lithium iron battery cells and modules, the company would also transfer battery recycling technology developed at its factory in South Korea to Taiwan, to simultaneously produce and recyclye batteries, Liu said.
In addition to supplying uninterruptible power supply batteries to Taiwan, Japan, the US, Southeast Asia and other regions, the smart energy company would also work with partners such as Skwentex International Corp (翰可國際) and Fortune Electric Co (華城電機) to deploy an energy system that supports Taiwan Power Co’s (台電) automatic frequency control services, which play a critical role in stabilizing the nation’s power grid, it said.
The system is expected to have a capacity of more than 50 megawatts by the end of this year. Two 100-megawatt grid-level super energy storage stations are planned for the future.
The company also plans to launch a 12.2 kilowatt-hour energy storage system that can meet the power storage needs of a family of three or four for a whole day, annual sales of which could reach more than 10,000 units, it said.
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