NEWS
First UltraBattery project goes live in Thailand Thailand’s first project to use the lead/supercapacitor technology of the UltraBattery from Furukawa Battery will begin operating in July. The brainchild of Australian scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the UltraBattery is supplied in Japan and Thailand by Japanese firm Furukawa Battery. Elsewhere, Australian firm Ecoult, owned by East Penn, supplies the product. In February India’s Ex-
ide Industries announced a partnership with Ecoult to manufacture UltraBatteries. This Thai project, which was agreed in January, will be installed at a 10MW wind farm at Lomligor in southern Thailand and will contain 576 UB1000 cells.
Furukawa is working with the Thai wind power generating company Inter Far East Wind International (I-Wind). “Solar and wind power generation continues to expand rapidly as the renewable energy sector develops in Thailand and throughout Asia, and the use of energy storage systems together with such technologies in order to reach a balance between power demand and supply has recently been drawing much attention,” said a Furukawa official.
Saltwater battery firm Aquion goes into bankruptcy, snapped up by Chinese Titans at auction The bankrupt saltwater battery firm Aquion Energy was bought for $9.8 million by Juline-Titans, an investment holding company affiliated to the China Titans Energy Technology Group, on June 20, according to Fox Business quoting the Dow Jones. The Titans Group owns many companies that are all involved in the electronics and energy industry. Battery firm BlueSky Energy, which advertises Aquion batteries on its website, had before the auction submitted a bid of $2.8 million. This pushed the price up to $3 million but was far less than the $9.8 million eventually achieved. The sale included everything, from the intellectual rights — dozens of current and pending patents — to the manufacturing equipment and inventory. Despite announcing a new project in February with one of Japan’s largest electric power companies, Kyushu Electric, to provide storage for solar power in Kagoshima Prefecture, just a month later Aquion was forced to
file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States District of Delaware. Under Chapter 11 a company can continue trading while a restructuring or sale is put in place. So what went so wrong, so suddenly and so soon after the company this January won the North American Company of the Year Award from the Cleantech Group, which included Aquion in its 2017 Global Cleantech 100? “Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time consuming and very capital intensive,” said outgoing CEO Scott Pearson. “Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern.” Aquion Energy began life in 2008 when Jay Whitacre, with support from Carnegie Mellon University, produced the first Aqueous Hybrid Ion (AHI) battery.
26 • Batteries International • Summer 2017
Since then Aquion has spent a total of $190 million on honing its battery technology, which works with a saltwater electrolyte, manganese oxide cathode, carbon titanium phosphate composite anode and synthetic cotton separator. By 2011, low-volume production of the batteries had begun and the ground was broken on a full-scale manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. In mid-2014, Aquion began shipping its batteries commercially and had installations in Japan, South Africa, Northern Ireland and Australia, as well as California. The team travelled far and wide to spread the word about its technology, declaring on its website: “In 2016 we attended, presented or exhibited at more than 50 different solar, energy storage and other industry events around the world. If you didn’t catch us this year, there will be just as many opportunities (if not more) to say hello in 2017!” It had a string of well
Hoppecke grows 25% for 2016-17 Hoppecke Industrial Batteries announced on May 26 it had recorded a 25% growth in revenues for the financial year 2016-2017. The company, the UK arm of Germany’s Hoppecke Batterien, has also completed a major overhaul and restructure that it says has led to improvements across all areas of the business. Hoppecke’s batteries — which include nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion as well as lead-acid ones — are used in around 50% of trains in Great Britain, as well as around 75% of Siemens trains worldwide. The company says all four of its main business areas — service, motive power, special power and reserve power – have seen impressive growth. “Our new management structure has focused on sales and cost savings which has resulted in vastly improved results for us in 2016-2017,” said regional managing director Jason Howlett. “This also positions the business very well to take advantage of projected market growth in all areas during 2017-2018.” known investors, including Bill Gates, Shell, Total, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Bright Capital. Batteries International received no response from Aquion over the sales process in June. However, before the auction chief restructuring officer Suzanne Roski said the company had not completed its analysis of how the sale proceeds would be distributed.
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