ANO - Button cells/battery patents development, page-2

The project is actually intending to produce large size batteries for use as energy storage in residential homes. The technology is superior to lithium storage supposedly as the battery design is non-combustible, runs with little heat and can be made far cheaper. These are all extreme positives as the safety of a battery that won’t catch fire is a huge win in the home. The downside is that it is heavier and larger, however for a house solution this isn’t a big deal (but wouldn’t challenge lithium for portable device applications). The board has a lot of past experience in residential home solar - Geoff started up a solar power business in the past and they are all still involved heavily in Tamawood, Queensland’s largest contract homes builder. They would have no problem selling a house battery through that network in early days.

The button cell testing is simply small scale prototyping to test theory. The board plans to do full scale prototype (a large size battery) next year. They have a company in Germany lined up to manufacture it.

The cycles refers to how many times a battery can be charged and discharged. All batteries lose effectiveness over time after use. Think of charging your phone each night, if you fully discharge and charge it you would consider it to be one cycle. The difference between 2000 and 3000 cycles is quite good and suggests a few years of extra life that further contributes to the potential cost of ownership of a energy storage solution for your house even being more appealing. Again, it is less appealing in smaller devices as generally their life cycles are much shorter before becoming obsolete tech.

Think of it this way -

Would you pay $20,000 for a battery that lasts 5 years and requires cooling and is a risk of fire

Or would you pay $5000 for a battery that lasts 10 years and requires no cooling and can’t combust

An easy sell, if they can pull it off.

I think they can go as far as to commercialise it and prove it can sell through their own experience and networks within the residential building sector - or they can develop it to a point and sell/license it out.

The project was originally a joint venture with Samsung / Corning - they only shelved it because of the weight as it was all about portable batteries for devices back then - however the future of every house needing energy storage is becoming very real.