A Chennai-based company is all set to pick up a minority stake in Sicona Battery Technology Pty Ltd, an Australian start-up based in the University city of Wollongong, near Sydney.

Soon after, Sicona will set up a battery plant most probably near Chennai, the start-up’s Founder & CEO, Christiaan Jordaan, told a group of visiting Indian journalists.

He did not wish to divulge the name of the Indian company because the deal is yet to be consummated. Jordaan expects that to happen in a month. He said that the Indian company is “a manufacturer of some of the raw materials we use.”

Sicona Battery has developed a unique Lithium-ion technology, which uses a combination of metallic silicon and carbon for anode. This, Jordaan said, would have much higher energy density: over 300 Whr per kg.

Sicona is putting up a pilot plant in Australia. The start-up aims to build “next generation technology into conventional lithium-ion batteries,” Jordaan said.

Green Gravity

Another Australian start-up, Green Gravity, which is working on mechanical storage of electricity, said it is checking the interest of NTPC Ltd, for a possible plant in India. NTPC is showing interest, Green Gravity’s Founder & CEO, Mark Swinnerton, told journalists.

The company’s technology makes use of mine shafts in exhausted mines. A heavy, 40-tonne mass, like a block of iron or concrete, is tied to a metal rope and kept at the bottom of the mine shaft. During the ‘charging cycle”, electricity is used to run motors that will lift the mass, winding the rope onto a drum.

When the energy is needed to be taken back, the drum unwinds, lowering the mass back into the shaft. As the drum rolls, it turns a turbine which generates electricity. Swinnerton said that 89 per cent of the input energy can be got back.

He said there are hundreds of old, unused mines in India and elsewhere, which could be put to use this way. He observed that the 3.3 km-deep Kolar Gold Field mine could be a good candidate for energy storage.

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