Redflow sets up Adelaide “battery lab” ahead of home storage launch

Ahead of the launch of its residential battery storage offering later this month, Australian energy storage company Redflow has established a “battery lab” in Adelaide to assist with its software development and to certify its zinc bromide flow batteries with multiple inverters.

The new facility will be located in Kent Town, not far from the Base64 office of Simon Hackett, Redflow’s executive chairman and a major shareholder in the Brisbane-based company.

Hackett, who is developing Battery Management System (BMS) software for the residential battery, established the lab on the premises of an existing business in which he is also a shareholder.

He said it was an ideal complement to Redflow’s Large Scale Battery (LSB) – one of which was to be installed at Base64 this month – “as a real-world demonstration of the effective grid-scale energy storage capabilities that Redflow also has to offer.”

South Australia “is at the leading edge of the renewables revolution through its solar panel uptake and wind power generation capacity,” Hackett said.

“The obvious next step is to embrace batteries for energy storage – in homes, businesses and indeed the entire electricity grid – to allow us to ‘time shift’ renewable energy from when it’s generated to when it’s needed.”

Last month, ASX-listed Redflow announced it would launch its residential battery before the end of March, with commercial installations scheduled to commence from June.

Redflow also reported it had completed an oversubscribed capital raising of $7.36 million and concurrently launched a $5.56 million entitlements offer. These funds will provide extra working capital for its residential battery rollout and to continue developing a new higher energy battery.

Redflow says it will use the lab to ensure its batteries work well with inverters from a range of manufacturers, so as to simplify the deployment process for installers.

“Redflow’s battery lab in Adelaide focuses on delivery, demonstration and training rather than development, which will expedite supplying the huge demand for batteries that is expected in Australia during the next few years,” Hackett said.

“At the moment, the network spins up gas-fired generators to meet brief energy demand peaks,” he said.

“In future, batteries will replace the need for those peaking generators with a much smoother way to accommodate spikes in demand. With its high renewables ratio, SA is ideally placed to leverage energy storage.”