BYD Installs First B-Box HV, Snags Major Panel Supply Deal

BYD B-Box HV

China’s BYD has announced it has won a multi-million dollar solar panel supply contract and also installed its first high voltage B-Box battery system.

The company says it will be supplying 170MW of BYD solar panels  for NextEra Energy PV projects in North America. The deal represents BYD’s largest single order in the USA so far. BYD states it has shipped around 1 gigawatt of its solar panel to the US market to date.

Also announced last week was the company’s world-first installation of its modular B-Box HV battery storage system, which occurred in Germany. Nine battery modules were installed in the unit, for a total capacity of 11.52kWh. BYD says further modules can be added and up to five B-Box HV systems can be connected in parallel.

The B-Box is based on lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP), which is widely regarded as the safest type of lithium battery as it isn’t so prone to the risk of thermal runaway as other chemistries.

The low-voltage version of  the system, B-Box LV Residential, is already being installed in Australia and BYD says it plans to introduce the B-Box in the US later this year.

The B-Box was a finalist in the 2017 Electrical Energy Storage (ees) Awards.

BYD is also active in large-scale storage. One of its flagship projects is a major integrated PV and energy storage facility in the UK.

“Results from the 60MWh UK project a year on show that BYD’s energy storage system has operated smoothly over these 12 months,” said BYD in June. ” The system responds quickly to the grid’s demand, matching over 99% of aggregate demand with five to six cycles every day. This frequency regulation project is the biggest of its kind in the UK to date.”

Founded in 1995, BYD has its fingers in a number of other pies. In addition to solar panels and battery systems, the company also produces LEDs, electric forklifts, electric cars, monorail systems and electric buses. The company is the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles.

In June, BYD announced a fleet of eleven 12-meter electric buses will be in use at Brisbane‘s airport in February next year. BYD electric buses are already operating at Sydney Airport.

In July, the Board of Los Angeles Metro awarded a contract for 60 electric buses to BYD, one of the largest single contracts for electric buses in US history.

According to the company, its global fleet of electric buses have so far clocked up more than 213 million kilometres collectively, saved 105,680,000 litres of fuel and avoided 283,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.