Indian lead-acid battery firm Greenvision has reported huge strides into Africa with its Relicell brand batteries.
Greenvision founder and managing director Biju Bruno told BEST that 80% of the company’s Relicell exports were now being sold in Africa, and many of those in Nigeria.
“The major application is for solar rooftop systems and solar streetlights,” said Bruno. “Our solar gel batteries can work well in higher ambient temperatures and in a partial state of charge.”
Relicell batteries contain a lead-calcium-tin-silver alloy, a synthetic separator with phosphoric acid added to the electrolyte to improve life cycle.
The three variants of the battery are used in solar, home inverter and deep cycle UPS applications.
“We see significant opportunity in the export of batteries to Africa and other countries,” said Bruno, who estimates the African lead-acid battery market will grow by 5.3% to 2021 because of the increasing demand for lead-acid batteries in uninterrupted power supplies and inverter systems.
“We are targeting $100 million revenue from the export market by the year 2017,” Bruno said.
The company currently produces 100,000 small Relicell batteries and 30,000 large ones a month at its manufacturing unit in Bengaluru, India.
