Schmid, a German technology group, finalized a joint venture with Nusaned Investment, owned by Saudi Arabian chemical manufacturing firm SABIC, to manufacture 3Gwh of vanadium redox flow batteries in Saudi Arabia.
Australian Vanadium (ASX: AVL) is also vying to become a commercial supplier of vanadium flow batteries in Australia, developing the strategy through its subsidiary company VSUN. Funnily, VSUN has been supplying VRFBs through its battery manufacturing partner (surprise surprise) V-Flow Tech for some time.
The JV between Saudi Arabia and Nusaned Investment marks a milestone for Saudi Arabia in its quest to localize manufacturing for technologies in emerging industries\. It is also a major step in SABIC’s NUSANED™ program that seeks to build partnerships and enable local content creation.
The JV directly contributes to Saudi Arabia's renewable ambitions as its products will be offered under the EVERFLOW brand. The Kingdom aims to install 57.5 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, as per the new energy mix announced this year.
JV's proposed 3 GWh Flow Batteries production facility is going to be developed in Jubail Industrial City. The project site has been identified and construction is expected to start in the first half of 2023.
The goal of the JV is to establish a gigawatt-scale manufacturing base in Dammam 3rd Industrial City in 2021, while also maintaining research and development (R&D) facilities in both Germany and the Kingdom. Construction work on the Saudi base is seen to begin by mid-2020. Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now.