Shanghai (ZXZC)- On May 11, Chinese power battery maker CALB Co., Ltd. (“CALB”) penned an agreement with local authority of Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone for a battery production capacity expansion project, according to a post on CALB’s WeChat account.

Under the new agreement, CALB will build another power and energy storage battery facilities with a planned annual production capacity of 30GWh, with 12 billion yuan ($1.768 billion) to be poured.

CALB's chairwoman Liu Jingyu; photo credit: CATL

The signing of the new project means the total planned capacity for CALB's Wuhan base will be increased to 50GWh.

The first phase of the Wuhan base was signed on May 31, 2021, with an annual production capacity of 20GWh, and its main plant topped out in March this year, said the company.

On April 28, 2022, CALB held a ground-breaking ceremony for its Meishan base in Sichuan province, which contains a 20GWh power battery and energy-storage system production project and a lithium battery cathode material project with a yearly manufacturing capacity of 100,000 tonnes.

CALB aims to raise its annual power battery production capacity to 500GWh by 2025 and 1TWh by 2030.

For the first four months of 2022, CALB recorded a power battery installed capacity of 5.09GWh, accounting for 7.89% of China’s total capacity and ranking third among power battery makers in the country.