SHENZHEN-BASED carmaker BYD Co., backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., aims to triple its production of batteries as it takes on Tesla Motors in the race to supply electric vehicles and boost energy storage.

    BYD plans to add six gigawatt hours of global production for batteries in each of the next three years and hopes to keep adding at that pace afterwards if demand is solid, said Matthew Jurjevich, a spokesman for the Hong Kong and Shenzhen-listed company.

    That means BYD could ramp up from 10-gigawatt-hour capacity at the end of this year to about 34 gigawatt hours of batteries by the beginning of 2020. This would put it about even with Tesla’s planned US$5 billion Nevada gigafactory.

    The companies are fast emerging as two of the key players in the nascent electricity storage sector. Storage technology is considered critical to integrating large amounts of renewable energy because it can absorb excess power from wind farms or solar panels and keep that for use when conditions don’t allow for power generation.

    “We have demonstrated that BYD is capable of adding six gigawatt hours every year with strong market demand,” said Jurjevich, who works for BYD’s U.S. unit. (SD-Agencies)