(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
BYD Company Ltd., the world’s leading manufacturer of rechargeable batteries, is focusing on the Australian renewable energy market with its proprietary Lithium-Iron Phosphate battery.
At All-Energy Australia 2017 – the country’s largest renewable energy exhibition, BYD exhibited its MINI-ES, B-Box – in high-voltage and low-voltage versions – and Containerized Energy Storage solutions to provide the market with increased efficiency, economy and flexibility.
The BYD B-Box Storage System comes in two versions: low-voltage B-Box LV and high-voltage B-Box HV. The B-Box LV system operates with a Goodwe S-BP inverter, making it the cost effective; and the B-Box HV system operates with an SMA Sunny Boy Storage inverter, which raises the system’s level of efficiency. Both are aimed at the retrofit market that is booming in Australia, that is, a market in which people already have solar panels installed and want to install an energy storage system.
Another advantage of the BYD B-Box systems is that they are modular and scalable from 2.5kWh to 442kWh – users can increase the capacity of parallel battery rack to meet different requirements of energy storage – whereas major competitors only reach 13.5kWh with a large-sized system.
A variety of configurations of the two versions of the BYD B-Box can also be used for commercial purposes.
The MINI-ES is a small-sized, all-in-one residential energy storage system that is easy to install and maintain, with an original capacity of 3kW / 3kWh that can be expanded to 6kWh. This system is fully certified by Australia’s SAA, in line with the latest Australian AS / NZS 4777.2: 2015 standard, and has become very popular with a number of Australian local power grid companies and electricity retailers.
Over 500 Australian households have already installed the BYD MINI-ES.
The BYD Containerized Energy Storage has a modular design to meet different large-scale energy storage projects demands, and features extreme safety, reliability and efficiency. It can be used for peak load and frequency regulation to stabilize renewable energy or as a back-up system to prevent outages.
Current installed capacity of BYD ESS exceeds 400MWh globally.
BYD and Berkshire Hathaway
In 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bet on BYD’s potential, purchasing 225 million shares. It’s an investment that has paid off handsomely. Berkshire’s original investment of $230 million is now worth roughly $1.8 billion.
For More on BYD, read the Special Report: BYD, Berkshire’s Tesla.
© 2017 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.