Batteries get a
second life here.
Lithium battery refurbishment, recycling and upcycling in Lusaka. We have been rebuilding packs in Zambia since 2019, longer than anyone we know of.
A lithium battery that will not hold charge is rarely finished. Inside it are dozens of cells, and usually only a few have failed. We test every one, keep the good ones, and build them into batteries that work again.
Refurbished, recycled and upcycled in Lusaka, by our own technicians. Click a photograph to enlarge it.
A dead battery is usually a few dead cells.
A laptop battery has six to twelve cells. A solar bank has dozens. When one fails the whole pack stops, but the rest are often fine.
Good cells can be measured and used again.
A cell that still holds most of its capacity is a good cell. We test each one and write the result on it, so nothing goes into a new pack on trust.
This has been done in Zambia since 2019.
Not imported, not sent away. Assessed, rebuilt and tested in our workshop in Lusaka, and put back to work across the country.
How a battery comes back.
Four steps, the same for a laptop pack or a car module. The photographs are from our own bench.
- 01
It arrives
An old laptop battery, a tool pack, a solar bank that no longer holds charge, a module out of an electric car. Most are not dead. A few cells inside have failed and taken the rest down with them.
- 02
Every cell is tested
We take the pack apart and put each cell through a full charge and discharge. Capacity and internal resistance are measured and written on the cell. Weak cells are set aside for recycling.
- 03
A new pack is built
Cells that match are grouped, spot-welded or bolted into a new pack, and fitted with a new battery management board that watches every cell from then on.
- 04
Back to work
The finished pack goes into a solar bank, a power supply, a portable power pack or back into the device it came from. It is tested under load before it leaves the workshop.
Refurbish. Upcycle. Repair.
REFURBISH
Solar banks and electric vehicle packs, rebuilt.
A solar battery bank that has faded, a lithium pack from a gate motor or an inverter, a module out of an electric car. We open it, find the cells that failed, replace or re-match them, fit a new management board, and test the pack under load before it goes back.
We have rebuilt packs from BYD and Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles and put them to work in homes, on gate motors and in portable power supplies for villages and out-of-town sites, where a standard AC charger and a good battery matter more than the badge on the car.
UPCYCLE
New power packs from cells nobody wanted.
Old laptop and server batteries are full of good cells. We harvest them, grade them one by one, and build them into something new: portable power packs, small solar banks, and complete power supplies with an inverter, switching and protection in one steel enclosure.
Each pack gets a new management board and a label that says what it holds. Cells that fail the test are kept out and go for recycling, never into a customer's pack.
REPAIR
Electronics that need a new battery, and a little care.
Laptops, power tools, portable power stations, lights and small devices whose only fault is a tired battery. We fit new or graded cells, repair what is worn around them, and hand them back working. It is usually far cheaper than replacing the device, and it keeps one more thing out of the ground.
2019
the year we rebuilt our first lithium pack in Lusaka
30 + 150
large and small batteries through the line in a typical month
K400,000
NTBC grant that equipped the line: cell testing and spot welding
EV packs
from BYD and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, rebuilt and put back to work
Some of what we have built.
Battery banks, power supplies and portable packs, 2023 to 2026. Click any photograph to see it full size.
Building the skill, not just the batteries.
Zambia's first national training programme for lithium-ion battery technicians, the Lithium-Ion Battery Technology, Maintenance and Circularity Skills Award, was built by TEVETA with GIZ and the University of Zambia. We helped validate the curriculum in July 2026, one of our own technicians is on the first cohort, and in September the students and their instructors spent a day in our workshop.
With Tandem Circular Consulting in Lusaka we prepared our GREENTech4CE application to the European Union's circular-economy programme, with PEM at RWTH Aachen University in Germany alongside on battery engineering.
Skills Award students in our store, September 2026Have a battery you are not sure about?
Tell us what it is and what it came out of. We will tell you honestly whether it can be rebuilt, what it would cost, and what we would do with the cells that cannot be saved.