The ESIL lithium-ion battery team demonstrates the battery assembly process. Image: Supplied

Partner and government funding has turned UWC's Energy Storage Innovation Lab into Africa's first lithium-ion cell production facility, and a training ground for the engineers who will power the continent's future.

Building a battery industry takes more than good ideas. It takes equipment, materials, skilled people and years of patient research. At UWC's Energy Storage Innovation Lab (ESIL), funding has made all of that possible.

"Innovation is what we are known for," says Ridaa Manuel, who coordinates ESIL's Energy Storage Graduate Programme and manages UWC's AgriVoltaics project. "We were the first production facility in Africa that produces lithium-ion cells, and we can also produce lithium-ion battery packs."

That capability rests on a funding model that multiplies every contribution. Metair invested R3 million to develop and pilot lithium-ion prototypes using local raw materials. First Battery added R1 million for training and prototype development. The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) co-funded both. Beyond the DSTI's continued support, ESIL has attracted funding from GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), local SMME AKAD, the Western Cape Motor Transport Department, the Energy and Water SETA and the local mining industry.

Locally designed electric bike powered by an ESIL 1 kW battery pack. Image: Supplied

The results are tangible. ESIL has built a mobile UPS that combines a battery pack and inverter, "allowing you to have energy anywhere you go", alongside battery packs for electric bikes, a solar-powered golf cart called the Volt Cart and an educational kit that demonstrates green hydrogen from production to use. The goal is a fully local product. "We want the battery pack to be produced within South Africa and the inverter to be produced within South Africa as well," Manuel says.

Funding has also built people. Through a graduate programme backed by the DSTI and the Energy and Water SETA, unemployed mechanical and electrical engineering graduates learn to make lithium-ion cells, assemble them into packs and use them to power bikes, homes and solar systems.

"We're trying to make them not only engineers but also visionaries," says Manuel. "They already have the knowledge. Now we give them the vision to solve problems that exist in South Africa," such as the load-shedding the country endured in 2022 and 2023.

The numbers bear that out. Since the programme started in 2022, 64 unemployed graduates and work-integrated learners have entered it. Of these, 40 have received job offers from industry, nine have gone on to study further and 15 are still in the programme.

The skills are spreading. ESIL's mobile battery pack is going to Northlink College, where TVET students will learn to build the packs - a step towards producing them at scale.

The work is now branching into new territory. Manuel manages AgriVoltaics, which aims to build farms that "don't only produce food, but produce food and energy, and capture water, all three working together". The design combines a solar-powered greenhouse for hydroponically grown vegetables with groundwater purification and green hydrogen production, all in a single structure.

The plan is to build a prototype at UWC and then take it across the continent, which will require partners. "We will definitely need partners with regard to rolling this project out into Africa," Manuel says. It is the kind of ambitious, cross-disciplinary research that sustained investment makes possible, and an open invitation to the funders who will help it grow.