Lithium Australia has joined forces with Chinese firm, DLG Group, forming a 50:50 incorporated joint venture to be known as Soluna Australia Pty Ltd that will sell lithium-ion battery and energy storage products as it seeks to disrupt the rapidly expanding Australian renewables energy market.
Lithium Australia Managing Director Adrian Griffin said: “[the new partnership] paves the way for the introduction of superior energy-storage products into the Australian market, reducing the carbon footprint of national energy consumption for both residential and industrial consumers.”
DLG is a top ten lithium-ion battery producer in China and it also produces lithium ferro-phosphate and lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide battery cells in addition to battery-management-systems and pack technology.
DLG designs and sells products for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, energy storage systems, e-bikes and the like, with customers in every major world market.
The company has some pretty significant IP too with more than 50 issued patents.
The new partnership will make for a hefty technological think tank between Lithium Australia’s battery cathode material developer, VSPC Ltd, and DLG.
VSPC is able to produce a wide range of cathode powders down to a microscopic size after many years of research and development. Lithium Australia said that VSPC is able to control individual particle sizing and the precision of the metallic particle chemistry to improve the overall product quality.
Soluna is now aiming to fast-track commercialisation of VSPC’s proprietary cathode powders for use in DLG batteries.
Soluna Australia will provide an effective platform to leverage complementary technical skills and facilitate the provision of new battery materials and recycling solutions for the fast-growing energy storage industry.
Importantly, Soluna Australia will look to provide a renewable and reliable supply of energy solutions to all power users in Australia.
Lithium Australia’s technological moves are timely with Australia's renewable energy sector experiencing unprecedented growth. The aptly termed “Australian Council of Learned Academics” estimated that Australian’s will need a massive 16 GWh of energy storage by 2030.
To reach this target – the academic think tank believes that more than $5 billion will need to be spent on developing energy storage solutions in the next ten years.
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By Matt Birney
