Altech Chemicals and Fraunhofer make significant progress in CERENERGY battery joint venture
Altech’s CERENERGY battery project moves forward with expert workshops in Germany and equipment supplier selection.
Altech Chemicals (ASX: ATC) has updated the market on its CERENERGY battery joint venture with Fraunhofer IKTS to say things are moving “very quickly”.
The joint venture, established back in September 2022, aims to commercialise Fraunhofer’s revolutionary CERENERGY Sodium Alumina Solid State (SAS) battery.
Altech appointed Leadec Automation & Engineering GmbH in October 2022 to serve as the lead engineer for the definitive feasibility study for its CERENERGY 100MWh battery project. The CERENERGY SAS 60KWh battery pack (ABS60) was then created and launched by Altech the following month to the grid storage and renewable energy market.
Since then, Altech’s CERENERGY project has seen significant progress.
Workshops in Germany
In October and December 2022, two critical expert workshops were held at the Altech facility in Schwarze Pumpe, Germany.
Altech workers, Leadec’s process and automation engineering team, and the Fraunhofer CERENERGY specialist battery team attended the workshops, which were supervised by Altech managing director Iggy Tan.
The team was able to finish the design base for the 100MWh battery with annual manufacturing of 1,666 packs of 60-kilowatt-hour (KWh) ABS60 battery packs.
Fraunhofer experts participated in the transfer of technical information to optimise the production process and thermal modelling of the 60KWh ABS60 battery packs to improve the design of the battery pack casing and battery management systems.
The lead engineering firm Leadec is currently creating the technical requirements for prospective suppliers to submit quotes on.
Equipment suppliers selection
Potential equipment supply vendors, recommended by Fraunhofer, were invited to present at the workshops to put forward their offers in terms of technical capabilities, cost and timescales.
Key equipment suppliers have been selected and are currently being integrated into the project teams.
In addition, the battery plant and the site’s preliminary layouts have been finalised.
Altech also hired ARIKON Infrastruktur GmbH to oversee the CERENERGY SAS battery facility’s approval procedure, site infrastructure requirements and balance of plant.
Sales pipeline
Looking ahead, the business development team at Altech is in contact with prospective clients who have shown an interest in the technology and the supply of CERENERGY batteries.
One of the potential customers expressing an urgent need for energy storage solutions is a major German energy producer.
Altech has held talks with top European banks in preparation for the funding stage and is also investigating various grant schemes within Germany and the Europen Union to support financing for the project.
Mr Tan is pleased with the progress of the project, stating, “We have moved very quickly on the opportunity and managed to close the joint venture agreement with Fraunhofer and incorporated two companies in just two months, with one month being the August holidays in Germany.”
“Since that time, we have raced to get the project moving with several commencement workshops. We have also appointed key engineering companies like Leadec and Arikon.”
“We have also launched the design for the 60KWh battery pack for the renewable energy storage sector,” he added.