Shenzhen based China Ritar Power, a Chinese manufacturer of lead acid batteries, is looking to increase its market penetration in the alternative energy storage market.
Contributing to the company's stronger market position are series of contracts and letters of intent to purchase China Ritar's nano gel lead acid batteries with several alternative energy companies, including Emerson Electric. The company expects revenues from its batteries used for alternative energy storage will increase to 15% of total sales in 2008 and 25% in 2009, compared to 5% in 2007.
Jiada Hu, China Ritar's chairman and CEO commented that the alternative energy industry, including solar and wind power, presents an important growth opportunity for China Ritar as the global demand for renewable energy and energy storage batteries continues expanding. He added that they are seeing a strong demand for their nano gel lead acid batteries as companies implementing cost control measures are switching to lower cost batteries which can range from one third to one half the price of competitive products.
China Ritar believes that it is the only Chinese battery manufacturer with proprietary formulas for nano gel lead acid batteries used to store energy derived from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Batteries used for energy storage derived from renewable sources require a high performance level and reliability due to the harsh environmental conditions and difficulty in performing regular maintenance. The company's batteries are said to meet these high performance standards and due to the Company's low production costs are priced lower than most international competitors. In the first part of 2008, China Ritar expanded its production capacity with the addition of five production lines at its newly established Hengyang Industrial Park facility.