On 15 October (local time), At Solar & Storage Live KSA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Hithium Energy Storage (Hithium) and MANAT (founded by Nabilah AlTunisi, Chief Engineer at Saudi Aramco) announced the formation of the joint venture Hithium MANAT.
Annual production capacity of 5GWh! Hithium pushes forward the desert special energy storage
Recently, Hithium, the world's leading energy storage company, has taken an important step in the Middle East by announcing the establishment of a joint venture with Saudi MANAT and plans to set up a manufacturing plant for energy storage systems with an annual capacity of 5GWh in Saudi Arabia. This initiative not only demonstrates Hithium's determination to accelerate its internationalisation process, but also supports the Middle East's vision of green energy transition and sustainable development.
At Solar & Storage Live KSA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Hithium presented for the first time its series of liquid-cooled energy storage system solutions for desert applications. These new products are custom-designed to meet the unique requirements of the Middle East Africa region, with high-level protection design and wide temperature range operation design, able to withstand the harsh environment of sandstorms and extreme temperatures. The launch of this innovative product marks another major breakthrough for Hithium in the field of energy storage technology.
The co-operation between Hithium and MANAT, founded by Nabilah AlTunisi, former Chief Engineer of Saudi Aramco, is a powerful alliance with deep industry background and rich market resources. By establishing a strategic alliance, the two companies will work together to promote the green energy transition in the Middle East and Africa, and support Saudi Arabia's ‘Vision 2030’ goals.
Hithium has always adhered to the localisation strategy of ‘local for local’, and has built a factory and set up a joint venture company in Saudi Arabia to provide advanced product solutions and professional localised services. This mode of co-operation helps to reduce risks, take advantage of local resources and policies, and expand the market. At the same time, Hithium will also create local employment opportunities and promote local energy technology innovation, achieving win-win development.
In recent years, Hithium has made significant progress in internationalisation. In addition to establishing a joint venture plant in the Middle East, Hithium has also set up subsidiaries and offices in a number of key overseas regions, including North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia. As of 16 October 2024, Hithium's total global shipments have exceeded 40GWh, demonstrating its leading position in the global energy storage market.
Hithium's initiative to build a plant in the Middle East is not only a strong practice of the company's internationalisation strategy, but also a positive response to the trend of global energy transformation. With the continuous optimisation and upgrading of the global energy structure, energy storage technology will play an increasingly important role in the future energy system. Hithium will continue to promote the development of the energy storage industry with its excellent technical strength and market insight.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that building a local factory in Saudi Arabia is not an easy task, involving complex market environment, laws and regulations, cultural habits as well as cost-effectiveness and other considerations. Therefore, enterprises often choose to set up joint ventures with strong local enterprises. This mode of co-operation helps to reduce risks, while taking advantage of local resources and policies to expand the market.
Since the beginning of this year, Hithium has made great progress in its international business. In order to respond to and meet the market demands of customers in key regions around the world more quickly, Hithium has set up subsidiaries and offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia and other key overseas regions, and has continued to promote the layout of the localised service network, which fully guarantees that customers are able to quickly access the company's innovative energy storage solutions as well as efficient service support. Hithium continues to land high-quality projects around the world, and as of 16 October 2024, Hithium's total global shipment has exceeded 40GWh.
How do Chinese companies tap into the Middle East?
Along with the local new energy installed capacity, the Middle East region new energy storage demand surge. In addition to the U.S. and European markets, the Middle East has become the most promising emerging market for energy storage.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia put forward ‘Vision 2030’, which promises to establish a new energy market and allow the private sector to trade and invest in new energy. Afterwards, Saudi Arabia successively released the King Salman Renewable Energy Act, the National Renewable Energy Plan, the National Environmental Protection Strategy and other documents to promote the development of new energy industry.
In order to increase the proportion of new energy after the rise of grid stability, Saudi Arabia plans to build 24GWh in this and next year the construction of battery energy storage system construction, a total of 8GWh of projects currently under construction, the second half of the estimated bidding for five projects totalling 10GWh.
In July 2023, the UAE government approved the National Energy Strategy 2050 Update, which plans to increase investment in the energy sector by Dh200bn (about $54.5bn) by 2030, increasing the share of clean energy (including renewable and nuclear energy) in the energy mix to 32%.
Middle East energy storage demand has risen trend, this year, China's enterprises frequently won a large single. In fact, before Hithium, the country has a lot of new energy companies to the Middle East to dig for gold.
In March, JinkoSolar announced the supply of energy storage products to Tadiran Energy Solutions Ltd. and Abaad Engineering Co. in the Middle East, including eight dolphin commercial and industrial energy storage units with a rated capacity of 1.72MWh and the Blue Whale, a large-scale liquid-cooled energy storage system with a capacity of 6.88MWh.
In mid-May, Sungrow entered into a partnership with Indian contractor Larsen & Toubro to supply 160MW/760MWh of battery storage systems and 165MW of PV inverters for AMAALA, a luxury tourism project in Saudi Arabia.
In June, Huawei Digital Power completed the construction of the Red Sea microgrid energy storage project in Saudi Arabia. With a scale of 1.3GWh, the Red Sea New City Energy Storage Station project is the world's largest microgrid energy storage project completed by Huawei under its leadership.
On 15 July, Sungrow and AlGihaz, a well-known Saudi energy company, signed a cooperation agreement on the world's largest installed energy storage project, with a total installed capacity of 7.8GWh, which is scheduled to start delivery in the second half of 2024, and to achieve full-capacity grid-connected operation in 2025.
In fact, not only the energy storage system, China's photovoltaic industry chain enterprises, have also been in the Middle East layout, such as JinkoSolar, TCL Zhonghuan, etc. has announced plans to build factories in Saudi Arabia.
Source : https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/v48p29PdtadyGh_blywGTQ