Australia’s first lithium-ion battery gigafactory, led by Energy Renaissance, is a step closer to commencing operations with the successful completion of an AMGC co-invested program.
Initiated to design, commission and operate a pilot lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant, dubbed ‘Project Apollo’, the pilot facility was designed to develop, test and document the technology, systems and processes and commence operations to supply to customers ahead of full-scale manufacture. Energy Renaissance currently operates at their Apollo facility in Tomago producing up to 4MWh of batteries per month and serving customers across Australia.
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Completion of the pilot program is a crucial step in Energy Renaissance’s scale-up program before its moves into its custom-designed, 4,500sqm ‘Renaissance One’ manufacturing facility at Tomago, NSW. The facility will house over 700 employees and initially produce up to 300MWh of energy storage annually, scaling to 5.3GWh of energy storage per year via its ground-breaking battery system.
Formed in 2015, Energy Renaissance will offer safe and affordable lithium-ion batteries, optimised for a low total cost of ownership in hot climates to satisfy rising domestic and export demand for grid-scale, lithium-ion battery storage systems. Leveraging local suppliers and supply chains, Energy Renaissance’s aim is to offer products that are as close to 100 percent Australian content as possible, with the company already at 92 percent.
Energy Renaissance development director and founder Brian Craighead said, “Just a few years ago we were told it wasn’t possible to manufacture in Australia. Today, in the shadow of our soon-to-be-completed Renaissance One facility, I can tell you that it is absolutely possible to manufacture in Australia.
“With the support of organisations such as AMGC and our partners, we have been able to develop a world-leading lithium-ion battery for domestic and export use and soon, we hope to expand the impact of this program to add value to Australia’s abundant raw materials by embarking on cell manufacture.”
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Completion of the pilot-facility program follows on from an earlier AMGC co-invested project where ER and CSIRO first developed a proprietary battery system (‘superRack and superPack’), which is a unique plug-and-play prismatic cell system. This is combined with the Renaissance BMS which is a CSIRO-developed cyber-secure battery management system comprising custom circuit boards, software, and wiring gives ER a competitive advantage in the global battery market.
