Lead battery maker Sunlight Group Energy Storage Systems (Sunlight Group) has made three appointments to its board of directors.
Gordon Riske is its new chairman and independent non-executive director (iNED), and will work with Michel Govaert, who will head the company’s Audit Committee, and Dr. Peter Lamp, who will head the firm’s technology and innovation committee.
Riske brings in-depth knowledge of OEMs and will help Sunlight Group broaden its activities in that sector.
Govaert is an expert in finance, development of action-oriented strategies, operational and financial result improvement, and mergers and acquisitions.
As of May 2022, Lamp, head of the BMW Group Battery Cell Technology and the associated worldwide R&D network, will join Sunlight’s board of directors.
Five-year investment plan
In 2021, the company announced a €560 million ($615 million) five-year investment plan to expand the capacity of both lead-acid and lithium-ion energy storage products.
The implementation of a €50 million ($55 million) investment plan for infrastructure, machinery, and new production-assembly lines for both lead-acid and lithium-ion technologies.
The larger part of the investment, €30 million ($33 million), regards the expansion of existing infrastructure with automated, state-of-the-art machinery in its lead-acid battery plant based in Xanthi, north-eastern Greece, as well as further expansions of its assembly plants in Verona, Italy and North Carolina, US.
The upgrade will gradually increase annual production of lead-acid motive power products from 4GWh to 5.3GWh through to Q3 of this year, and will render the Xanthi-based manufacturing unit the largest in the world for industrial, motive, lead-acid batteries.
Investment plan buy-outs
In January, Sunlight Group Energy Storage Systems acquired 70% of Technoform, a Greek battery moulds and components designer and manufacturer.
Sunlight— part of the Greek Olympia Group— will support Technoform to implement an “ambitious investment plan” to broaden its product portfolio and increase its competitiveness on a global scale, via further “automatization” of production.
Technoform’s Georgios Dokouzgiannis retains 30% of the company he formed in 1998.
US lead battery hub
Last May, Systems Sunlight launched a subsidiary to run a 2GWh assembly hub for lithium-ion and lead batteries within the US.
The new subsidiary, Sunlight Battery US, and assembly plant follow a $10 million investment.
Sunlight Battery US will run the hub in North Carolina, which will have a total floor plan of 105,000 square feet.
Systems Sunlight’s assembly hub to reach US lithium-ion and lead battery market
