Eiko Power inaugurates 400 MWh Italian production site, 2 GW fab due 2027

Eiko Power, a company based in Lithuania and Baranzate, Milan, is targeting the European and North American markets, planning to build the second factory in 2026 and then go into full operation in 2027 with production in the province of Vercelli.

“The production capacity of the first factory will be 400 MWh. This is an R&D project. The second factory is in Guardabosone, Vercelli; it is being renovated. It will have 2 GW of production capacity per year. This capacity will be transferred to Europe from 2027,” Kim Van Luan Hoang, an entrepreneur of Vietnamese origin, told pv magazine Italia during the inauguration party of the first factory.

According to Hoang and his Lithuanian wife Orinta Eivaite, the proposed technology is cutting edge in Italy.

“Our technology is ahead because we developed it in Northern Europe, with Nord Pool. Our technology is based on artificial intelligence. What will be the future here in Italy with MACSE has already existed in Sweden, Norway, and the Baltics for five years,” Hoang said.

The company says, however, that it will be the first company to build and conduct research entirely Made in Italy for the production of batteries for the storage of renewable energy. In Baranzate, the first plant, covering a surface area of ​​5,000 m², should house over 60 employees, including technicians, specialized workers, and personnel involved in research and development.

It already sells batteries but the certification refers to the second type of battery. “This will be our gear change. For all batteries: from 10 kW residential to 5 MW containerized solutions.”

The new batteries, Hoang reports, last 8,000 cycles. After 8,000 cycles they reach an efficiency of 80%. At that point, according to Hoang, it is possible to replace only the packs, without replacing the entire battery.

Immersion batteries

The cells are produced in Vietnam, then transported by ship to Rotterdam and then brought to Guardabosone by truck.

“At Guardabosone we do the transformation with secret ingredients that we manufacture. We will use the cells, immersing them in an aeronautical liquid that maintains the temperature, where the cells avoid burning because when a lithium cell burns it is like an oxyacetylene torch. Instead, if the cell is inside a special liquid, this greatly reduces the possibility of fire,” Hoang said.

The batteries are, Eiko reports, in the process of being certified by Kiwa. Certification should arrive by the end of the year. At that point, after six months of construction, production should begin in July-August 2026 and then go into full swing in 2027.

“Today the liquid in which the cells are immersed is still an industrial secret,” Hoang said, adding that Eiko Power has identified a series of European and Italian mechanisms “that are very incentivizing and are giving us a big help.”

Financing

The idea, however, is that the activity will have to progress as much as possible without European funds and subsidies, Hoang reports, because the subsidies would arrive in two or three years anyway. It makes more sense, Hoang says, to participate in calls for tenders for AI.

“We are participating in a call for tenders in Sicily where they are providing large aid for artificial intelligence. We are developing the first prototype with a pool of Italian companies, using artificial intelligence linked to greenhouses, therefore also to the growth of the plant together with energy.”

According to Hoang, there is plenty of funding. You just need to have the right technology.

Swedish experience

“The capital is mixed. We have investors from all over Europe. We are talking about Sweden, we are talking about the Baltics.”

Asked whether Northvolt’s complex experience could come in handy, Hoang says the business model is different.

“With hardware you crash into Chinese mass production, you get hurt. Our technology is artificial intelligence, which is different.”

The software is, Eiko reports, what enables the management, in particular, of energy communities, memorizing consumption profiles and optimizing the system, especially as the dynamic tariff contracts increase. Optimization in general, says Hoang, allows his company reduce the amortization of investments in batteries, from eight to ten years to four to six years.

For Hoang, the European market is a unique market. It offers the advantage of comparable standards and different sources of financing: continental, national, and regional. “We have to think like Europe. Ours is a company rooted in Europe, born in Europe. For us, Europe is a country. Then we have the United States, North America, which is the second market.”

The company also plans to produce batteries in Lithuania.

Market segments

The company starts from residential because it considers it the best way to define the setup of production capacity, understood not only as output capacity in terms of gigawatts, but also in terms of R&D.

“Our goal from the beginning has been to try to carry forward a project that, in synergy with other players, will make us technologically independent – not productively – from the Chinese,” said Massimiliano Cappellato, CEO of Eiko Power.

Cappellato told pv magazine Italia that the company wants to bring to Italy R&D capacity, testing capacity, and assembly capacity in the battery sector.

At full capacity, residential will represent approximately 20% of production outlets, while approximately 50% will target the commercial and industrial sector. Approximately 30% will have utility scale as its outlet market.

From pv magazine Italia.