Indonesian State-Owned Company In Battery Cell Manufacturing And BESS MOU

The government-owned Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC) is exploring opportunities to establish cell manufacturing and battery storage integration facilities with engineering company Citaglobal.

IBC, also known as PT Industri Baterai Indonesia, was founded by four separate state-owned enterprises in the Southeast Asian country. Its goals include creating a battery industry to serve markets for electric vehicles (EVs) and other “game changing industries”.

Through the corporation’s newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Malaysia’s Citaglobal, a specialist in construction engineering services, the pair will explore the development, design and construction of integrated battery cell, module and pack turnkey manufacturing facilities.

They will also develop integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions, and work to transfer knowledge and technologies for battery and BESS manufacturing.

The initial agreement runs for a year.

Citaglobal is involved in diverse industry segments, including energy. Within that, its renewable energy group is developing a battery management system (BMS) for battery storage with an industry partner. It also signed an October 2022 collaboration agreement with Malaysian automation and assembly company Genetec Technology, to work on the development of BESS technology.

Southeast Asia market’s transformation

While the MoU is an early-stage signaller of interest in battery manufacturing and battery storage integration rather than a done deal, it is one of several similar announcements made across the Southeast Asia region in recent months.

In November, fast-rising Chinese battery manufacturer Gotion High-Tech’s joint venture (JV) with Vietnamese battery cell and pack maker and battery-as-a-service company VinES broke ground on a US$275 million, 5GWh a year lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell factory.

Devices made there will be used in BESS stationary applications as well as electric mobility, while a month or so later, Gotion said it is aiming to build a similar factory in Thailand.

Further downstream, interest in energy storage in the region is undoubtedly growing, as heard from a number of industry experts and participants in an article for Vol.33 of our quarterly technical journal PV Tech Power.

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