Tag / Home Battery Scheme

by brandsa2018

From Holdens to home batteries: sonnen helps recharge workforce

Adam Williams began his first full-time job as an apprentice toolmaker at Holden’s Elizabeth factory at the age of 19. Fast forward more than two decades and instead of cars coming off the production line it’s home battery systems.

After almost two decades working at Holden in various roles including leadership and management positions, Adam is still in the manufacturing game and is back under the same roof of the historic car-making site.

He now leads manufacturing operations at sonnen, a global home battery giant that has set up in the old Holden factory, now rebadged as Lionsgate Business Park and home to a small handful of other hi-tech manufacturing businesses.

“Ironically, my very first day at Holden was in this building that sonnen is setting up in,” says Adam, Brand South Australia’s latest I Choose SA ambassador for the trade and investment sector.

“Holden was a big part of my life, it taught me a lot and gave me a big insight into business, lead processes, safety and culture, which are all invaluable to manufacturing outside of auto.”

sonnen Australia’s manufacturing manager Adam Williams is Brand South Australia’s latest I Choose SA ambassador. Photo by JKTP.

The former manufacturing plant in Adelaide’s north has remained relatively disused since the last of Holden’s Elizabeth employees officially clocked off for the last time in November 2017, closing a near-century old chapter of Australian car-making history.

But investment by Melbourne-based Pelligra Group in the site has seen advanced manufacturing tenants including sonnen move in and establish presences here in SA.

Founded in Germany in 2010, sonnen produces the sonnenBatterie, a hi-tech energy system that stores and adjusts household usage of solar power.

All but two of the current 50 employees at sonnen’s Australian HQ are ex-Holden workers, and Adam says their auto-manufacturing skills have been transferrable into the new industry.

“When you’ve been doing something for so long, you never quite know if your skills will be relevant in a different industry, but I quickly found the philosophies and mentality around manufacturing and business were very transferrable,” he says.

“Our employees bring many skills in terms of understanding continuous improvement, they understand safety, advanced manufacturing and lean manufacturing.”

The first employees at sonnen’s Adelaide factory when it opened in 2018.

Adam left Holden in 2015, two years after General Motors officially announced it would eventually close the Elizabeth plant. He went on to spend three years at medical x-ray manufacturer and start-up Micro X based at the Tonsley Innovation District, another old car factory once home to Mitsubishi.

Upon hearing the news of sonnen’s plans to invest in SA, Adam researched the home battery maker and was drawn to the opportunity to be a part of a global company with high manufacturing volumes of about 10,000 home battery systems a year.

“To see this site reborn is really exciting, it’s going to be good for the state and good for the northern area of Adelaide,” he says.

“I love manufacturing and the philosophy behind it, what it brings to the state and the economy. Even though I left Holden, it’s an industry I want to stay in.”

The sonnenBatteries work by controlling how the battery stores and releases solar power into the home. The system can isolate itself from the electricity grid during blackouts, allowing a household to use its own stored energy until the power comes back on.

In Germany, thousands of homes are already connected to a ‘virtual power plant’ – a sonnenCommunity – where power is shared between households, resulting in no need for a conventional energy provider.

Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan, left, and Premier Steven Marshall congratulate Sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann at the sonnen launch in Adelaide in 2018.

“That is the goal here as well,” Adam says. “The more people we have on batteries, the less demand on the grid.”

sonnen was the first vendor to be accredited to SA’s Home Battery Scheme, a $100 million government initiative allowing households to install solar panels and a storage battery at a reduced cost.

But it wasn’t the scheme that motivated sonnen to set up in SA, says head of Asia Pacific and managing director of sonnen Australia Nathan Dunn, but rather the state’s advanced manufacturing capabilities.

“The ready pool of talent in SA will allow us to tap into future demand for sonnenBatteries and allow us to scale our operations within SA,”  Nathan says.

“Another reason we have chosen to establish a presence in SA is the significant local ecosystem of suppliers that we can partner with to acquire components needed for the manufacturing of sonnenBatteries locally.

“Our goal is to ultimately increase the level of Australian sourced components to build a battery that is fully made in SA.”

Nathan says the goal is to produce sonnenBatteries to meet the needs of Australian customers before the company looks towards export opportunities into New Zealand, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia.

Read more:

· German battery giant to create 430 manufacturing jobs for SA

· Why energy giant sonnen chose to invest in SA

Industry in focus: Trade and Investment

Throughout the months of January and February, the state’s trade and investment industry will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

South Australia is in a prime position for trade and investment opportunities as we have a 24-hour connection to international markets and a prime reputation for our premium products and services.  Read more trade and investment stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Why energy giant Sonnen chose to invest in SA

Global energy storage giant Sonnen is producing its first Australian assembled batteries at the former Holden factory in Elizabeth as its workforce builds to some 150 within months.

Operations and finance managing director Marc Sheldon believes South Australia is the ideal place for the German-headquartered company to work toward producing 10,000 batteries a year to meet demand in Australia and the neighbouring Asia Pacific region.

“The energy market as it exists in SA is unique, it is more advanced than any OECD country in its transition to renewable energy,” Marc says.

This, he says, gives the Sonnen company the opportunity to address challenges and be prepared for a market it expects to develop rapidly throughout the region in the next few years.

It also means Sonnen has established itself in a state where it has access to highly skilled workers and companies with a “can do” attitude.

Sonnen’s operations and finance managing director Marc Sheldon, left, Sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann and managing director for Australia and Asia Pacific Nathan Dunn.

Marc says more than 50 local employees are already on the production line and almost all of them are ex-Holden staff – while another more than 100 are working as installers through the supply chain.

The company is well on the way to creating about 430 new jobs in the state within 18 months, he says, as outlined when the new Liberal State Government announced earlier this year that Sonnen would be moving into the repurposed Holden factory.

“What we do is advanced manufacturing in the purest sense, we leverage the innate capabilities in the market itself,” Marc says.

“We’ve indicated before that one of the key challenges for us when we are choosing a site is around availability of talent and availability of staff to fill those roles, what we’ve now really found is lots of well educated, well trained staff.”

Sonnen is supporting the new $100 million Home Battery Scheme announced by the State Government in September that provides a subsidy of up to $6000 per household to install home battery systems.

From October, 40,000 South Australian households have had access to the scheme designed to reduce electricity costs and demand on the network, in turn delivering lower power prices for all South Australians.

Sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann, far left, shows Premier Steven Marshall, and Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan, far right, Sonnen systems at the company’s official launch in SA.

The $100 million in State Government subsidies was also matched with $100 million in finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to provide low-interest loans for the balance of the battery and new solar if required.

When the scheme was announced, Premier Steven Marshall said priority was being given to qualified system providers who commit to installing approved battery systems that are manufactured or assembled in SA.

Sonnen was the first provider to be afforded the nine-week priority period – meaning their products were exclusively available to households – with additional brands available after the nine-week period.

The company describes its world-leading sonnenBatterie as a high-tech energy storage system that automatically adjusts the energy usage in a household in combination with solar panels to provide clean, renewable energy.

“There’s a reason why we’re going to SA, we’re quite impressed with what the government has been able to put together since its election and the feeling we’ve received from people in SA is really good, there’s a can-do attitude,” Marc says.

“Businesses we meet with say we can do that right now or let’s sit down and see how we can make that happen … that makes us quite happy looking at the future.”

Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan, left, and Premier Steven Marshall congratulate Sonnen CEO Christoph Ostermann, on the company’s establishment in Adelaide.

Sonnen will use Adelaide as its Australian headquarters and shipping centre for the Asian region, and Marc says the first SA assembled batteries to be exported will head to New Zealand in January.

The company aims to assemble and manufacture 50,000 energy storage systems at the site over the next five years, after its plans to establish the battery production plant in Adelaide were initially announced in February 2018.

Manufacturing costs are also now proving to be positive from the initial cost projected in pre-planning as Marc says there already had been an increase in productivity per head by 30% as the process was streamlined.

Sonnen has also appointed a new Australian managing director Nathan Dunn to support growth with Marc, who has worked for Sonnen for the past three years, saying there was much potential in SA.

“I think in South Australia everything is moving in the right direction and a lot of very interesting developments are happening right now that will benefit the state,” he adds.

Header image: The Sonnen Adelaide team. Photo by Danielle Marie.

Industry in focus: Trade and Investment

Throughout the months of January and February, the state’s trade and investment industry will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

South Australia is in a prime position for trade and investment opportunities as we have a 24-hour connection to international markets and a prime reputation for our premium products and services.  Read more trade and investment stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

More jobs as Canadian battery maker flicks the switch in SA

Up to 200 new jobs will be created over the next three years as a Canadian energy storage firms invests in South Australia’s booming battery sector.

Eguana Technologies will invest $12 million in assembling and manufacturing its cutting edge Evolve home energy storage system in Adelaide.

The global innovator is the latest company to invest in the state’s battery sector, with German energy storage giant Sonnen and Chinese battery manufacturer Alpha-ESS also establishing an SA presence.

The three companies are approved suppliers under the state’s Home Battery Scheme that allows 40,000 households to access up to $6000 in subsidies and low-interest loans to pay for the installation of home batteries and solar.

Until December 31, households can purchase subsidised batteries from Sonnen, Alpha-ESS or Eguana Technologies. Under an agreement with the State Government, the priority period awards system providers who install batteries manufactured or assembled here in SA.

Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment David Ridgway says he’s pleased to welcome Eguana as the latest international company to invest in SA and commit to manufacturing and assembling their batteries in Adelaide.

“Based in Calgary, Eguana Technologies designs and manufactures high performance residential and commercial storage systems, so to be able to bring their skills and technology to SA is a significant win,” he says.

“Since we announced the Home Battery Scheme, we’ve had fantastic global leaders such as Eguana knocking on our door to be a part of the largest rollout of home batteries in the world.”

Eguana has 20 years of experience in delivering grid edge power electronics for fuel cells, photovoltaics and batteries from its manufacturing facilities in Europe and North America.

Eguana Technologies chief technology officer Brent Harris says the announcement confirms SA as a world leader in the use of solar and battery technology.

“The requirement for smart batteries is the first of its kind and the Evolve product was designed to support sophisticated programs that go beyond basic backup power and reducing consumption,” he says.

“We have already begun establishing our manufacturing capabilities in SA and look forward to providing choice to SA energy storage customers.”

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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