Huawei launches the Industry's First hybrid cooling Energy Storage System for commercial & industrial customers in Sub-Saharan Africa

[Johannesburg, South Africa, 24 March, 2025] Huawei Digital Power announces a ground-breaking solution that will meet the dynamic demands of the commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage sector across Sub-Saharan Africa. With a focus on system safety, refined management, and intelligent applications, the FusionSolar C&I LUNA2000-215-2S10 significantly advances the energy storage industry, promising enhanced efficiency and reliability for businesses across the region. With an outstanding 106 MWh of the newly launched LUNA2000-215 Series ESS ordered from 9 partners spanning Sub-Saharan Africa!

Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa FusionSolar C&I Innovative Product Launch

Meeting Market Demands

The C&I ESS market in Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly expanding and is driven by high demand and compelling economic benefits. The LUNA2000-215-2S10 is engineered to address the unique challenges of this growing market. Huawei FusionSolar is proud to introduce the Industry's First C&I ESS that uses novel smart air and liquid cooling systems, along with advanced safety, thermal management, and power supply technologies to deliver industry-leading results.

Innovative C2C Electrical and Thermal Safety

Despite the significant potential of energy storage systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, safety concerns remain a focal point. These systems involve electrical equipment and battery technology, meaning improper installation or maintenance may lead to risks like fires, electrical hazards, and even adverse environmental impacts. With these concerns in mind, the proactive safety features of an ESS are just as critical as their ability to provide a reliable power supply.

Huawei's LUNA2000-215-2S10 is equipped with proactive Cell-to-Consumption (C2C) dual-link Safety Architecture, ensuring both electrical and thermal safety from the cell level through to consumption. Key features include:

• C2C Electrical Safety: High-precision battery managing integrated circuits (BMICs) collect extensive data to manage cell status and detect faults. Enhanced insulation materials provide superior pack-level protection while system-level safeguards cut off faulty circuits in overcurrent situations. Huawei's unique cell-to-ground short circuit protection can achieve rapid shutdown within 5 milliseconds, faster than the industry's standard 1s shutdown.

• C2C Thermal Safety: At the cell level, a heat insulation layer prevents thermal diffusion and damage to adjacent cells. The advanced liquid cooling plate at the bottom is a key method for quickly reducing the cell temperature. At the pack level, battery packs are heat-resistant and IP65-rated. The airtight design of the battery packs eliminates fire risks, while an independent fire suppression system ensures rapid response to potential hazards. In these extreme scenarios, a unique L-shaped directional air duct is capable of quickly exhausting combustible gas outside the cabinet to avoid fires. The structural design also includes explosion relief panels on the top of the cabinet, thus preventing any kind of explosion from impacting people at close range.

Huawei’s rigorous design, premium build quality and unique technology have allowed the LUNA2000-215kWh ESS to obtain the highest safety certification, called Prime safety, by international independent assessor TUV Reinland.

Lower Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS)

The LUNA2000-215 series also boasts several features aimed at reducing the Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS). This power supply architecture ensures higher profitability for C&I customers through smart management tools and algorithms. Users get more out of the ESS through:

• Increased energy discharge: With a round-trip efficiency (RTE) greater than 91.3%, the system enhances performance through smart algorithms and pack-level optimisation, ensuring maximum energy discharge throughout the battery’s lifecycle. That’s because the new and innovative smart hybrid cooling architecture ensures an optimal operating temperature and reduces the energy consumption of auxiliary devices. Huawei’s unique pack-level optimiser has been upgraded and now uses efficient bidirectional balancing topology to optimise the system in real time. This means that a battery pack with poor performance will not affect the whole system, allowing it to achieve 100% depth of discharge (DOD) in each pack and a 2% higher available energy within the battery lifecycle.

• Reduced capital expenditure (CAPEX): The high-density integrated design of the ESS cabinet enables a flexible layout of side-by-side and back-to-back to achieve a three-sided cabinet connection. In addition, prefabricated installation simplifies the installation process and significantly reduces transportation costs and installation time and cost.  The pre-integrated components and elimination of auxiliary cables simplify the installation process, reducing both time and costs significantly. Once operational, the intelligent scheduling function implements intelligent charging and discharging, intelligent peak shaving, and intelligent PV+ESS collaboration. According to the project verification processes, comprehensive revenue can be improved by more than 10%. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) is significantly improved through cell-to-system monitoring, online health diagnosis, and quick fault locating within seconds.

• Minimised operational expenditure (OPEX): Automatic pack-level state-of-charge (SOC) calibration eliminates the need for on-site visits and reduces the losses caused by manual operations and downtime.  The lifespan of the coolant in other ESS is only five years. Huawei developed a coolant which can achieve a 10-year lifespan. This reduces the coolant replacement cost and avoids the leakage risks caused by frequent coolant replacement.

For installers, Huawei’s C&I system is a one-size-fits-all solution tailored to make installation easier through easy design, easy purchase through a single supplier interface, easy installation through a streamlined two-hour commissioning and easy O&M where a single after-sales interface provides long-term support.

Flexible Applications with "One for All"

The LUNA2000-215 series makes Huawei’s "One for All" concept a reality, as this ESS deploys enhanced software platforms for end-to-end system management. This includes:

• Efficient Design and Operation: Utilising mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) and parallel computing technology, the system accurately calculates project ROI and optimises energy storage scheduling.

• Intelligent Operations: The intelligent scheduling function facilitates peak shaving and effective PV+ESS collaboration, improving revenue through optimised energy capture and storage.

• Streamlined O&M: Cell-to-system monitoring, online health diagnostics, and quick fault localisation significantly enhance O&M efficiency.

Huawei Digital Power's LUNA2000-215 series ESS represents a significant leap forward in energy storage technology for Sub-Saharan Africa. With its robust features, innovative safety measures, and commitment to sustainability, it is well-positioned to empower businesses in the region to meet their energy needs efficiently and reliably.