Liotech, a joint venture between Russian state-owned firm Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) and Chinese holding company Thunder Sky Limited, held an opening ceremony this week for what they claim is the world’s largest lithium-ion battery factory. The sprawling 40,000-square-meter plant near Novosibirsk was built in nine months – probably less time than it would take just to secure the building permits in many countries.

With Chinese and Russian cities rapidly converting their public transport fleets to electric and hybrid buses, demand for Liotech’s batteries is high. Other applications include energy storage for renewable energy and load leveling, as well as uninterruptible power supplies. The new plant, which has a capacity of over a million batteries per year, already has a healthy order book.

“The new factory is an outstanding example of the local impact of transferring the foreign high technology. In realizing a program to replace imports, we are creating an entire cluster of new high-tech production for materials and components related to the batteries and also an engineering center which is an excellent synergy,” said Sergey Polikarpov, Managing Director of Russian partner RUSNANO.

“Implementation of public electric transport equipped with our lithium-ion batteries will significantly improve the environment in large cities in Russia. Use of the batteries in combination with alternative sources of energy will promote the development of ‘green technology’ and increase the energy efficiency of the Russian economy. We are already seeing interest in our storage batteries from Russian Railways, the Moscow Metro, electric power networks and power generating companies, businesses in the military industrial complex, the public utilities sector, and telecommunications companies,” noted Liotech CEO Alexander Erokhin.

Image: RUSNANO