ASPİLSAN Energy, which has started high-tech battery design projects for ASELSAN, TUSAŞ and Roketsan products within the scope of its R&D activities, continues its stable growth in 2021.
Despite the global economic difficulties experienced during the pandemic, ASPİLSAN Energy continued its stable growth in 2021.
Commenting on the work done in 2021, ASPİLSAN Energy General Manager Ferhat Özsoy said: “Both the pandemic and economic difficulties affected us, like many other companies. However, despite the pandemic and global economic problems, we made significant progress in 2021.”.
Our investment in a li-ion battery production facility, initiated and continued with the support of the Turkish Armed Forces Strengthening Foundation, has been the most important issue for ASPİLSAN Energy this year in terms of transformation and growth. This is an important and strategic project for our country, and I can say that we have focused all our attention primarily on realizing this project with this awareness. Our work on this facility, where we expect to start mass production of batteries in the first half of 2022, has been our main focus. Making this investment in a short time was possible with considerable effort.
Our R&D efforts continued.
In addition to new commercial batteries, we have initiated high-tech battery design projects for ASELSAN, TUSAŞ, and Roketsan products, and we have made significant progress in this area. These batteries will make important contributions to the domestic and national production of our country's critical defense systems. As an organization of the Turkish Armed Forces Strengthening Foundation, our primary goal is to meet the battery and power supply needs of the Turkish Armed Forces. However, advancements in battery technology and battery systems are now present in all aspects of life. As ASPİLSAN Energy, we have made significant progress in producing batteries domestically and nationally. In this context, we primarily aim to understand the needs of all sectors and to produce solutions together with them. In this way, while increasing the localization rate of the batteries we produce, we also aim to reduce the current account deficit with solutions that meet all the needs of our country.
In addition, at our Ankara R&D Center, we have completed the establishment of an infrastructure that will both develop and design batteries and provide support to raw material producers. This R&D center, which will serve as a hub for battery research in our country, provides services to all our stakeholders regarding all types of testing, large or small, related to battery production and development. Similarly, thanks to a contract we signed with TÜBİTAK Rail Transportation Technologies Institute (RUTE), we are jointly conducting battery development studies.
Our Istanbul R&D Center has passed a significant milestone this year by unveiling the first prototypes of its hydrogen and fuel cell research. We presented both our electrolyzer and fuel cell prototypes to the public at SAHA EXPO. The importance of these efforts has become even more apparent after the signing of the Paris Agreement. This year, we have surpassed a significant level in this area as well.
Our product portfolio has expanded into sectors outside of defense.
Looking at new markets and products, this year we entered a significant market by localizing various rail system batteries. In parallel with the metro and train investments made in our country, we reaped the rewards of our investments in the rail system battery sector this year and supplied our first domestically produced rail system batteries to our operators and manufacturing companies.
We also started supplying our first products for different offshore platforms this year. In addition, we entered another new market by deciding to produce batteries for home appliances together with Arçelik. We also started supplying our products to two separate sectors with our telecommunications batteries and e-mobility batteries. Thanks to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification we completed this year, we also entered the civil aviation market. In this respect, we can say that 2021 was a year of significant transformation for ASPİLSAN Energy.
Our staff numbers have increased by over 100%.
ASPİLSAN Energy experienced over 100% growth in employment in 2021, with our workforce increasing from around 100 at the beginning of the year to approximately 235 by the end.
ASPİLSAN Energy continued to grow rapidly in 2021, particularly with the support of the Turkish Armed Forces Strengthening Foundation. Significant support and contributions to this growth were also provided by ASELSAN, TUSAŞ, Roketsan, and HAVELSAN.”
