Russia’s first drone battery plant could be built by 2025

As Kommersant learned, Inenergy (with the participation of Gazprombank) and Transport of the Future (part of Efko Group of Companies) plan to launch the first industrial production of batteries for drones in the Moscow region by 2025. Investments in the Metalion plant with a capacity of 750 MWh will amount to 25 billion rubles, half of which will come from state subsidies through the NTI project support fund. According to Kommersant, Gazprombank can also enter the capital of the enterprise. Potential Russian buyers talk about the need to obtain comparable prices and characteristics of batteries compared to imports.

According to Kommersant, Inenergy (25.1% belongs to H2 Invest, the structure of the ZPIF Gazprombank – Long-term Investments, and the rest belongs to the founder of the company Alexei Kashin and is pledged to the ZPIF) and Transport of the Future (TB ; structure of the Efko product manufacturer) plan to launch a Metalion plant in the Moscow region in 2025 for the production of lithium-ion batteries for drones and electric vehicles. The pilot plant’s capacity will be 750 MWh per year, both companies told Kommersant. The enterprise will be located near the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Dolgoprudny. The parties discussed the project at the site of the Archipelago forum in Novosibirsk.

Investments in Metalion will amount to 25 billion rubles, including expenses for the development of electrochemical systems and materials, and CAPEX of the plant – 14 billion rubles.

Half of the total funding – 12.5 billion rubles – will be the contribution of the federal budget to the capital of Metalion JSC through the NTI project support fund, said Alexei Kashin, founder of Inenergy. “The first part of the contribution from the NTI fund for 1.6 billion rubles. We expect to receive it in 2023,” he said. It is assumed that in the future, private investors will also be able to enter the project, the composition of which Mr. Kashin does not disclose. According to Kommersant, we can talk about Gazprombank, which has already invested in Inenergy in 2023. Negotiations are also underway with the Moscow government, which has big plans for the development of electric transport.

Metalion plans to produce key materials, batteries and low-capacity batteries (up to 1 kWh) for portable equipment and drones, as well as large batteries with a capacity of more than 100 kWh for electric vehicles and energy storage devices. Orders for drone batteries will account for about one-fifth of production, with electric vehicles accounting for the bulk of orders. Prior to the launch of the enterprise, orders will be filled on existing Inenergy lines with a capacity of up to 20 MWh at MIPT and Skoltech, on the basis of which small-tonnage production of cathode material is being developed. So far, the main customers are law enforcement agencies, Mr. Kashin admits.

There are no firm contracts for batteries for drones yet, active negotiations are underway, says TB CEO Yuri Kozarenko. TB can act as an anchor buyer: in 2024 the company plans to produce about 800 agricultural drones, 50 heavy drones weighing 700 kg and several hundred other drones, which will form an order for power plants with a total capacity of 20 MWh. “This is our minimum plan for the first purchase from Metalion, without taking into account the resource replacement of batteries,” Yuriy Kozarenko noted. In the future, in 2027–2030, the order may increase to 350–500 MWh per year.

The supply of power plants will also be provided by the Agrimax Aero service company, in which TB acquired a stake. According to Maxim Chizhov, General Director of Agrimax, the company has previously agreed to supply up to 1,000 batteries per year, and an important result will be the battery charge rate up to 80% in 20 minutes, and “ideally, in 10 minutes, like the best foreign analogues.”

The key issue is the price of batteries. Agrimax buys batteries in China at a price of 50-200 thousand rubles. per unit, depending on the type of battery, “I would like the products in the Russian Federation to be at least comparable,” says Mr. Chizhov. For the first two or three years, products should not be more than 30% more expensive than Chinese counterparts, and the difference will be compensated by state support measures, “further on, we expect to reach economic efficiency and bring a competitive product to the market,” notes Yury Kozarenko. At the first stages, according to Alexei Kashin, the manufacturer “will focus on buyers who are the least price sensitive.”

“Our task is to prevent situations when the production of drones can stall due to the lack of supplies of foreign components and components,” Mr. Kozarenko added.

Whether batteries will be subject to China’s export restrictions from September 1 is still unknown (see “Kommersant” dated August 1). But such a vulnerability is in any case a good incentive, Yuri Kozarenko continues, along with the requirements for an increase in the localization of drones produced in the Russian Federation.

Usually, up to two or three batteries are purchased for each drone, “in the life cycle, battery cells can reach 10–15% of the total price of a drone and even more,” says Alexei Semenov, Chairman of the Board of Geoscan Group of Companies. World prices for lithium batteries are falling, but this fall has not fully reached Russia, he notes. Geoscan buys cells for its large professional drones for 15-20 thousand rubles. for 1 kg and independently assembles the battery, while the key requirement is an energy density of at least 270 Wh per 1 kg. “If the plant produces cells with comparable characteristics and prices, we will buy domestic products, as this is much more reliable than imports,” says Mr. Semenov. If the energy density is noticeably lower, the import of cells will continue, since one of the main characteristics of the drone, the flight time, directly depends on this.

In order for manufacturers to start buying Russian batteries, they must be reliable and compact, operate in a wide temperature range “without leaks and swelling, neither in winter nor in summer,” says Nikolai Ryashin, director of Rusdronoport. In great demand today, he adds, are internally heated smart batteries, which can reduce capacity drawdown in winter and get telemetry: voltage, number of charge-discharge cycles, error messages and cell temperature.

Aigul Abdullina, Polina Smertina