Samsung SDI, South Korea’s leading battery maker, said Wednesday that it has inked a memorandum of understanding with Swiss power and automation technology provider ABB for development and sales of energy storage system solutions for microgrids.

At the signing event of the MOU in Switzerland Wednesday, Samsung SDI chief executive Cho Nam-sung and Ulrich Spiesshofer, chief executive of ABB, agreed to jointly increase their presence in the rising energy storage industry.

“The latest deal is really meaningful for both parties since the two counterparts are leaders in their respective industry sectors,” said CEO Cho at the signing event.

The two companies will collaborate on developing ESS solutions optimized for microgrids, which are small-scale electricity systems independently run to power local communities, by utilizing the top-notch Li-ion battery technology of the Samsung Group affiliate and ABB’s leading technology for power converter solutions and energy management solutions.

Microgrids coupled with alternative energy and the ESS have been garnering much attention as they can be deployed to rural or mountainous areas in an environment-friendly manner.

The Li-ion battery-based ESS market for microgrids is expected to grow 41 percent in terms of total storage capacity from 299MWh in 2015 to 3,419MWh in 2022, according to Navigant Research.

The Korean battery maker topped the world’s secondary cell battery market by sales, taking up a 24 percent market share, in 2014, according to Japanese research institute B3.

“Through this MOU, the two firms will be able to deliver optimized energy solutions for customers,” the ABB chief executive said.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)