Can the trend of electrified transportation in Africa support the development of the local battery industry?

The transition to electric mobility presents a major opportunity for the continent to enter a new era. Africa has a low rate of motorization compared to other parts of the world. In some African countries, there have been some exciting developments in the field of electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, electric cars and electric buses. After a few years of pilots, many companies operating in this field are now working to scale up their operations. Most of these batteries are imported from overseas, mostly from China.

Some local stakeholders have called on African countries to take advantage of the global transition to electric mobility and ultimately get more out of their natural resources. The battery energy storage sector has been at the center of many discussions at multiple forums. The rich battery production resources on the African continent are always mentioned. Here are some of them, focusing only on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, as listed in the South African Automotive Business Council’s South African New Energy Vehicle Roadmap discussion paper:

Nickel: South Africa is the world's ninth largest nickel producer, and Zimbabwe also has rich nickel reserves.

Manganese: South Africa has 70% of the world's manganese reserves, with some in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.

Cobalt: Congo accounts for more than 60% of global supply, with 85% exported to China, and some from Zambia.

Lithium: Zimbabwe is the world's fifth largest lithium producer, with some production coming from South Africa and Namibia.

Graphite: Mozambique (20-40% of global reserves), with some in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.

Copper: South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

So, with these resources, when will Africa be able to enter battery manufacturing? Recent discussions with one of the largest automotive OEMs with an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle production footprint on the continent suggest that a local battery plant would likely require production capacity of at least 300,000 EVs per year. New car sales are fairly low in most African markets, as used car imports dominate in many of them. So there is a lot of work to be done to develop local new car markets in these countries. For example, it would be necessary to grow the market to these levels to provide 300,000 new car sales for a specific model or series of models using the battery pack to make a battery plant viable. Having markets in at least 10 countries that could buy around 30,000 cars per year in Africa could be one way to achieve this.

Assuming that the 300,000 is based on vehicles with 60KWh batteries, another way to justify a local battery plant of this size is to supply batteries for the booming two-wheeler market. Many electric motorcycles have battery packs with capacities approaching 3KW. Looking at it simply, this could mean that the plant would need battery pack demand for about 6 million motorcycles per year from multiple markets on the continent. Some markets such as Kenya already sell more than 300,000 motorcycles per year, so it would take about 20 markets of similar size to reach the 6 million target. Of course, demand for batteries will not only come from two-wheelers, but also from electric vehicles, buses and trucks, as well as stationary energy storage applications for residential, C&I and the grid. We look forward to seeing how the clean energy sector develops in the region, how battery energy storage demand will grow, and when it makes sense to build a battery factory.

(Original source: Clean Technology Global Energy Storage Network, Global New Energy Vehicle Network, New Energy Network Comprehensive)