Scaling Smarter: How PHENOGY Is Moving into Series Production

Last year, we commissioned Europe’s first large-scale sodium-ion energy storage system in Bremen. The project demonstrated that our technology performs reliably under real-world conditions. Since then, we have made significant progress: we are actively bringing our products to market and gaining recognition across the industry, as reflected by our The smarter E AWARD. We are gradually moving beyond our roots as a technology startup.

As demand grows, we face a new challenge, one that goes beyond cell chemistry and system design: How do we bring our energy storage solutions to market reliably and at scale?

How We Are Building Our Ecosystem

We carefully assess which parts of the value chain we should manage ourselves and where specialized partners can strengthen our ecosystem. Advancing cell chemistry, system design, and customer-focused energy storage solutions is our core business. That is where we concentrate our resources.

Manufacturing battery cabinets and containers at industrial scale requires a distinct set of capabilities, processes, and expertise. Following the fabless model familiar from the semiconductor industry, we entrust this part of the value chain to specialized partners.

For manufacturing, we have chosen HD Advanced Technologies (HDAT), a subsidiary of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. Under a long-term framework agreement, HDAT will manufacture PHENOGY battery energy storage systems and provide installation and maintenance services at customer sites. The partnership will initially support the European market from Germany, with the potential to expand into the United States in the future.

Why HDAT Is the Right Partner for PHENOGY

Two factors made HDAT the right choice for us. First, the industrialization expertise of the HEIDELBERG Group, which brings decades of experience in developing and manufacturing complex technical systems. Second, its commitment to regional supply chains. HDAT manufactures in Germany and works with regional suppliers, providing the industrial foundation we need to scale independently in Europe.

PHENOGY CEO Peter Tix commented:

“The collaboration with HDAT is exactly the right approach for us to ramp up our capacities quickly and meet our customers’ needs with high-performance, tailor-made energy storage systems made in Europe. I spent many years in management at HEIDELBERG myself and therefore know our partner’s processes first-hand. This knowledge, and the trust that comes with it, now enables us to get the collaboration between our two companies up and running quickly.”

Supply Chain Control as a Strategic Objective

This collaboration is about more than manufacturing expertise. It is another step in our strategy to build PHENOGY into an integrated provider with a high degree of control over its own supply chains.

Behind this strategy is a simple belief: those who cannot shape their own energy supply inevitably become dependent, whether as a company, a region, or a society. Battery energy storage systems are a key building block of energy sovereignty. They make renewable energy reliably available and contribute to the stability of the overall energy system.

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Regional Production Enables Independence

That sovereignty depends on a second question: what the storage systems themselves are made of. Conventional lithium-ion batteries depend on lithium, a resource with a geographically concentrated supply chain that is largely controlled by China. Sodium-ion technology does not require lithium or cobalt and is based on widely available raw materials. That is one of the reasons why we have believed in this technology from the very beginning.

The partnership with HDAT supports our goal of building a regional manufacturing base with resilient, low-risk supply chains.

A European Manufacturing Base as the First Step

Europe is the first region where we are putting this strategy into practice together with selected local partners. But Europe is the beginning, not the destination. Through PHENOGY Inc., we are already active in the United States and are building a comparable manufacturing partnership there. At the same time, we are laying the foundation for our business in other regions around the world.

Step by step, PHENOGY is evolving from a technology startup into a global player capable of bringing this technology to market at scale.

Photo: Peter Tix, CEO PHENOGY, Peter E. Braun, Chairman of the Board at PHENOGY, Michael Wellenzohn, CEO HDAT, Sascha Singer, COO HDAT