Former treasurer Mike Nahan is chairing a business that plans to manufacture cathode material in Kwinana.
Former treasurer Mike Nahan is chairing a business that plans to manufacture cathode material in Kwinana.
Australian Energy Storage has so far raised $1 million to fund early feasibility work to develop a 10,000 tonnes per annum plant.
The team includes Raj Aggarwal as a director, who played a key role in the development of the East Rockingham Waste to Energy plant as Tribe Infrastructure’s local representative.
Dr Nahan served in key state portfolios including treasurer, finance and energy, before later becoming WA Liberal leader for two years.
Read more: Spending growth lower under Nahan
AES was founded by Peeyush Mathur, who leads resource services business Access Petrotec and was an engineer at Wood Group and GHD.
AES was spun out of Access Petrotec in 2020.
Land negotiations are progressing with the state government for a lot on the Kwinana industrial strip, while German battery consultancy P3 has completed early feasibility work.
That showed the project is economically viable, AES said.
“Kwinana is the best place in the world to make certain types of battery (materials),” Dr Nahan told Business News.
“You have all the ingredients in Australia, most of them around that strip.”
Photo: David Henry
Making LiNCM cathode material for electric vehicles requires inputs such as lithium hydroxide and nickel sulphate.
Western Australia is already a big supplier of lithium and nickel, with lithium hydroxide refining capacity being constructed in multiple locations, and nickel sulphate production recently commissioned by BHP.
There are also potential sources of cobalt, which is often a byproduct of nickel mining.
Part of the competitive advantage of producing cathode material locally is cutting transport costs, and avoiding the dehydration and rehydration of the input chemicals, which is needed when they are shipped separately, Dr Nahan said.
WA’s other advantages are that the material is ethically sourced, from a stable jurisdiction, and manufacturing can be powered by green energy.
Ethical sourcing is particularly important for cobalt; much of global production comes from the Congo, where there have been reported concerns about worker safety and exploitation issues.
AES has also started discussions with automakers and cathode material traders.
The agreement with P3 also includes a partnership to use the company’s battery technology expertise, helping AES move more quickly to building a project at scale without having to develop its own chemistry through a pilot plant.
There was also substantial capital available for projects that make a difference to the environment and climate change, Dr Nahan said.
He was confident the company could get the pieces in place to move the project ahead quickly.
“One of our biggest challenges is the legacy of downstream processing,” Dr Nahan said.
“It’s been a long dream (in WA).
“Many attempts, very few successes.
“Kwinana was set up explicitly to develop these types of projects.
“You could not find a better place in the world to put this together.
“Most of the failures in downstream processing are when you try to go from miners into manufacturers.”
Mr Aggarwal said cathodes were the next step for the state.
"When you think about downstream processing in Western Australia, the key is not to look many steps down from what we do today,” he said.
“It's about adding value incrementally.
“Cathode is a clearly logical next step from the processing of raw materials that already occurs in Kwinana."
Mr Aggarwal also said it made sense for a new business to take the lead in developing a new sector.
"Government funding often flows towards very large corporations in a bid to create new industries,” he said.
“Whereas history is littered with evidence that the entrepreneurial who can break the shackles of large corporate bureaucracy tend to be the ones that generate the next major industry.
“AES hopes to achieve this but knows the road ahead will be complex and challenging."
