One production line, 15 GWh per year. That is the new unit of scale in energy storage.
HiTHIUM has started production at its Heze Base in Shandong, described as the world’s first industrial park dedicated exclusively to long-duration energy storage (LDES): around 80 hectares, over RMB 13 billion across the value chain, 95%+ automation, and fifth-generation lines rated above 15 GWh each. Their flagship LDES cell: 1,175 Ah. A familiar figure – 1,175 MVA is the capacity we qualified in Portugal in the first phase of REN’s Termos de Referência procedure. Different units, same direction of travel.
The pattern across China is consistent:
– BYD’s Zhengzhou complex, its largest, is planned to reach roughly 130 km2 – bigger than San Francisco – and already turns out about one EV per minute and one battery every few seconds.
– CATL’s Fuding base near Ningde, its largest single project, is planned at 120 GWh per year, inside a Ningde cluster of 330 GWh installed and another 170 GWh under construction or planned.
And the ripple now reaches Portugal :
– The next BESS auction is confirmed for September 2026: 1,050 MW in total, split between 750 MW of standalone batteries and 300 MW co-located with renewables, under a National Storage Strategy targeting 3 GW by 2030.
– On the supply side, CALB’s New Sines Gigafactory – EUR 2.07 billion, 15 GWh per year, serving both EV and BESS markets – entered Phase 1 construction in May with a EUR 207.3 million contract awarded to Mota-Engil, targeting operations in 2028. Portugal’s biggest battery factory, with electrode, cell and assembly buildings on a 45-hectare site in Sines.
Manufacturing at this scale moves BESS capex faster than most greenfield models are re-run. For developers holding grid capacity in Iberia, storage hybridisation is no longer a sensitivity case – it is the base case. September will give us the first real Portuguese price signal.
At Nenuphar Advisors we develop solar, wind and BESS hybrids across Portugal and Spain, from greenfield to Ready-to-Build.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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