When will Africa get its first gigantic battery factory?

Africa doesn’t have a supersized battery factory of its own — at least not yet.

The idea of “gigafactories” capable of producing batteries that can store at least 1 billion watt-hours of electricity, or roughly enough to go into 16,000 Tesla Inc. Model 3 electric cars, became popular after Elon Musk used the term for his first sprawling battery facility in Nevada. Today there are hundreds of battery factories at this scale across Asia, North America and Europe.

China, by far the world leader in battery production, has at least 180 large battery factories. Emerging economies such as Mexico and Thailand have some big battery plants as well. So far, however, there are none of significant size in Africa or South America, even though developing countries on both continents are important sources of the metals that are essential for producing electric vehicle batteries.

That could change following an agreement announced last week between Chinese battery manufacturer Gotion High-Tech Co. and the Kingdom of Morocco. The memorandum of understanding envisions the first factory for EV batteries in Africa, with an annual capacity of 100 gigawatts, backed by an investment of €6 billion ($6,4 billion). Gotion is one of the world’s 10 largest battery manufacturers and listed on both China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange and on the Zurich Stock Exchange in Switzerland.

Following this initial step both Gotion and the government aim to sign an investment agreement, according to Mohcine Jazouli, Morocco’s delegate minister in charge of investment and public policies.

The project will contribute to “decarbonisation and the deployment of innovative energy solutions,” said Gotion President Li Zhen said in a statement released by Morocco’s investment agency. Gotion declined to comment further. — Bloomberg.