To triple renewable energy by 2030, energy storage capacity must increase sixfold by the same year. It’s an ambitious target, and the world is far off track.
With the clock ticking, scaling capacity requires ramped-up investment, innovation and all hands on deck.
Dubai-based supercap energy storage manufacturer Enercap Holdings is one of the companies working in the space.
This week, the manufacturer announced a joint venture (JV) with Abu Dhabi-based investment holding company Apex Investment to build 16GWh per year manufacturing capacity of supercap energy storage.
According to Enercap, this technology’s features will surpass current lithium-ion technology.
ESG Mena’s Sal Jafar met with Waseem Ashraf Qureshi, CEO of Enercap, at the World Utilities Congress in Abu Dhabi to discuss the energy storage landscape, the company’s joint venture, and what lies ahead in the space.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Waseem, the last time we met, you announced a breakthrough in your storage technology. What can you tell us about your developments at the World Utilities Congress today?
As you know, we are a 100 per cent homegrown company. We research, design, develop and manufacture this battery and energy storage technology in UAE.
This year, we have been spotted by the business leadership of UAE, and now we are entering our first joint venture with Apex Investment.
Apex Investment has taken 65 per cent shares of Enercap, and what we are going to do with that is set up a new factory and enhance the capacity of our old factory.
Altogether, 16GWh of energy storage manufacturing capability: 10GWh in Abu Dhabi and 6GWh expansion in our existing factory.
We are now ready to roll out our product globally.
Can you tell us more about your main clients and the services that you are offering in the space?
So, anybody who is using a battery in any form, starting from a double A or triple A cell and going up to megawatts or gigawatt hours of grid-scale, utility-scale energy storage systems, is our customer.
Now, where we have a big value, is in grid scale storage, because grids all over the world have started using battery energy storage systems, and we have a solution which nobody in the world can offer.
It’s a non chemical solution and it carries very high efficiency. It can be operated at very high and very low temperatures; it’s super long life and very easy to operate.
All the bottlenecks of chemical batteries are covered in this technology right now, today, this is an evolution period for the battery industry.
Every day, we hear new and new battery technologies coming up.
We feel that we will be one of the surviving technologies because we have long life.
Earlier, we saw His Excellency Dr Sultan Al Jaber attend your stand. How do you foresee the potential to collaborate at the macro level with the different stakeholders in the UAE?
Dr Sultan Al Jaber has good interest, and he is a visionary person.
He envisions that batteries are the future. For that reason, he has asked us to give some proposals for some applications, which we are very happy to do. We feel that that will help the UAE grow fast.
Tell us more about your relationship with Apex Energy and the markets you are planning to enter.
So Apex Energy has a global rollout. You saw that we signed MOUs for the value of 40GWh. MOUs have been signed for the off take, which was enormous.
We were anticipating 10GWh, and we did four times that. Now it’s on us to put up more and more factories.
After this, for the UAE factories, we have one in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi, and then the third one will be coming up in Turkey.
Then we have plans to go to South Africa, Pakistan, and the United States, so there will be a global rollout.
Finally, I’d like to speak to you about the EV landscape. We’re seeing a big push for EV charging in the UAE. What’s your roadmap here?
For EVs, yes, we have developed a technology with very high energy density.
We are launching our electric vehicle battery with which you can charge an electric vehicle within six minutes.
So, would you collaborate with EV manufacturers in the region?
We are talking with almost everyone.