ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Yoshihisa Suzuki, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has acquired equity shares issued through a third-party allotment by Shenzhen Pandpower Co., Ltd. (headquartered in Shenzhen, China; Chairman, President, and Founder: Wang Haitao; hereinafter “PAND”), which operates a business of reusing and recycling automotive batteries in China, to embark on a business of reusing automotive batteries into container-type energy storage system (hereinafter “ESS”) as part of its actions towards a lithium-ion second life battery business.

Founded in 2016, PAND has operated a business of reusing and recycling automotive batteries installed in electric vehicles (EVs). It is such a highly technical firm that a majority of its founding members and technical staff have an experience in development of batteries in large EV manufacturers. PAND collects reusable automotive batteries(*) and holds its own basic technologies for analyzing, grading and recomposing reusable automotive batteries(*) to operate a business for the effective use and recycling of reusable batteries in China. Highly regarded for its advanced technical strength, it has a business relationship with BYD, a large EV and battery manufacturer in China.

China leads the world in the expansion of the EV market, with EV sales growing since the mid-2010s. It is anticipated that batteries installed on EVs that were sold in the past will be collected in large quantities in the future and it is a major issue to make effective use of used batteries. Through its capital and business alliance with PAND, ITOCHU will be stably procuring BYD’s and other manufacturers’ reusable batteries at quality levels at which they may be reused into container-type ESS. While renewable energy is increasingly introduced around the world, its full-scale spread essentially requires the deployment of storage batteries that absorb power output fluctuations. ITOCHU will utilize its accumulated expertise in the ESS business, and on the basis of container-type ESS recycled from reusable batteries, to provide a frequency control in power fluctuations to the area that was difficult to introduce ESS for cost reasons, microgrids in less-populated regions and other competitive energy services to new market domains.

ITOCHU is working to evolve its business into a form that matches the next generation with a view to continuously increasing its corporate value. It is focusing its energy on the development and sale of ESS under its own brand and on the expansion of the business of ESS and related materials. By upgrading a battery business that has been nurtured together with PAND, it will boost the percentage of renewable energy and thereby contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, stabilizing power supply and realizing a distributed energy society.