BYD Co. Ltd., an automaker based in Shenzen, China , that began as a mobile phone battery manufacturer, seeks to increase its battery production by triple, competing against Tesla Motors to produce and sell electric vehicles and grow energy storage.

The company intends to ramp up its gigawatt hours to 10 for global production of batteries, adding 6 each year for the next 3 years. BYD aims to expand this pace over time, demand-willing according to Matthew Jurjevich, spokesperson of the company.

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"We have demonstrated that BYD is capable of adding 6 GWh every year with strong market demand," said Jurjevich.

This could mean that BYD may hike its GWh capacity to about 34 GWh by the start of 2020. This is approximately equal that of Tesla's planned $5 billion Nevada gigafactory.

Both firms are becoming key names in the electricity storage sector. This tech involved in this industry is largely responsible for integrating considerable doses of renewable energies and can absorb and store for later excess power from other power producers.

The sector is seen to expand by as much as US$1.5 billion by 2019 from US$128 million in 2014, according to GTM Research. These are figures estimated for the United States alone, where even stalwart battery manufacturers have shown interest in the sector.

GTM forecasts that the U.S. energy storage market would triple to 220 MW this year.

While most of its production is in China, BYD plans to open in Brazil a new factory which would supply a significant amount of output by 2016. Data from Lux Research shows BYD is the sixth largest battery manufacturer for hybrid and plug-in vehicles.

BYD wants to beef up manufacturing in the United States, having opened two manufacturing plants in South California in 2013. It has 70 MW projects planned to add to its 40MWh projects this year and another 130 MW projects in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, Tesla Motors targets to introduce its own production of battery cells in Nevada by next year and to grow its GWh capacity to 35 by 2020. At present, its battery cells are sourced outside, like from Panasonic Corporation.

TagsBYD Co. Ltd., tesla motors