ATC has signed a multimillion-dollar lithium ion battery bulk purchase agreement with Polarium, which will support a new energy storage manufacturing plant in South Africa while securing thousands of lithium-powered backup solutions for ATC’s Africa markets
Polarium and ATC are taking their partnership and shared vision in sustainability to the next level, whereby Polarium will establish a factory in South Africa to produce energy storage solutions for use in Africa.
Tuoyo Ebigbeyi, chief technical officer of ATC Africa, commented, “A vital part of ATC’s sustainability programme is to rely more on renewable energy solutions to power our communications sites, which fits squarely with the Government of South Africa’s goal of adding more renewable sources to its energy mix and decreasing its dependence on coal by 2030. Having a partner like Polarium enables us to harness renewable energy sources more effectively. By switching to Polarium’s high-end lithium-powered backup solutions, we have reduced our Scope one emissions and reliance on fossil fuels by over 50% since 2018.”
Stefan Jansson, founder and CEO of Polarium, said, “We are very happy that our strategic partnership with ATC continues, as Polarium and ATC are both committed to drive the transition to a more sustainable telecom tower infrastructure. With this deal, we also strengthen our presence in sub-Saharan Africa. The production in our new factory will be in line with our sustainability goal of being carbon neutral by 2030.”
Polarium will now have production on three continents, North America, Africa and Asia, which strengthen its supply chain even further. The company is currently evaluating possible locations in South Africa for the new factory. Around 200 to 300 people will be directly employed in the factory, and equally as many sub-contractors are needed.
The new factory will be able to produce about 100,000 batteries per year, with the flexibility to expand to 300,000 batteries per year. The first orders from the factory can be placed in the first half of 2022.
