St Baker Energy Fund to invest $20 million in TrueGreen Mobility ahead of introduction of $35k BYD EA1 and T3

L to R: Trevor St Baker, StBEIF CEO Rodger Whitby, and TrueGreen Mobility CEO Luke Todd. Image: TrueGreen Group

This week, Australia’s e-mobility focused TrueGreen Group announced that the St Baker Energy Innovation Fund (StBEIF) will be injecting $20 million into its business, as the company looks to roll out two BYD electric vehicles in Australia later this year from $35,000.

The BYD T3 commercial van will lead the charge, offering a 50 kWh battery with 300 km (186 mile) range. The compact BYD EA1 — recently unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show — will follow later in 2021, and will offer customers a 500km range .

Luke Todd, TrueGreen Mobility chief executive said there was “pent-up demand” from businesses for electric transport and that TrueGreen Mobility expected to sell thousands of small vans nationally.

Speaking with The Driven, he stated “With our products, electric vehicles have now reached price parity with combustion engines, so a switch to EVs makes perfect economic, commercial, environmental and moral sense.”

Rodger Whitby, CEO of the StBEIF, said the $20 million financial injection was a “relatively small token of collaboration” and that the fund would spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars expanding Evie Networks’ public charging sites according to the Australian Financial Review.

A little history. If you don’t know the name Trevor St Baker, you probably should. An expert in electricity utility planning in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, he ultimately went on to found a number of private power development companies, with investment in Australia, South East Asia, and the United States.

Mr. St Baker is pro-nuclear and coal power, and has publically criticised the idea that renewables can provide baseload power while advocating for coal power stations to delay their closure.

Nexport’s $35,000 BYD T3 van. Image: Nexport Australia

In 2013, he formed the StBEIF, of which the primary purpose was to invest in energy start-up businesses, and that’s where Tritium — an EV charging hardware company you may have heard of — comes in.

The StBEIF is focused on investing in electric vehicles, despite its history in the oil and gas sectors. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr. St Baker said “People are marching in the street for decarbonising and net-zero emissions and they’re really serious about it,” he said. “Decarbonising and electrifying the transport sector is an absolutely essential part of that.”

Trevor St Baker, Luke Todd, and Rodger Whitby with a BYD T3 electric van. Image: TrueGreen Group

The StBEIF’s $40 million ($31.051 million USD) investment in Tritium paid off, with the Australian-based company set to list on the NASDAQ through special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Decarbonisation Plus Acquisition Corporation II, itself owned by asset management firm Riverstone Holdings. The enterprise value is expected to be $2.2 billion ($1.708 billion USD).

The StBEIF will also assume a seat on the board of TrueGreen Group. The fund also backs Australian high-speed EV charging company Evie Networks.

Energy Renaissance announces start of construction for Australia's first lithium-ion battery factory

Australia will soon be producing lithium-ion batteries onshore, thanks to start-up Energy Renaissance. With funding raised exclusively from private investors, Energy Renaissance has committed to manufacturing batteries at a site in Tomago, NSW, only a few kilometres from the Port of Newcastle.

Energy Renaissance’s 4,500 sqm purpose-built facility will manufacture Australian made batteries that are, according to the company “safe, secure, affordable and optimised to perform in hot climates.” Energy Renaissance will be manufacturing energy storage systems for the transport industry including busses and light commercial vehicles, as well as batteries for grid-scale, mining industry and community storage uses.

Energy Renaissance will have an initial battery production capacity of 48MWh per year and the capacity to expand to 180MWh per year in 2022. Energy Renaissance’s long-term plans are to develop a 1GWh battery manufacturing facility, and potentially grow to 5.3GWh over the next decade.

Construction of the facility will commence in April 2021 with a small-scale production trial run of batteries to start by July 2021, ramping up to full-scale production in October 2021.

CIS Solutions recently undertook an independent economic impact analysis, and concluded that an Australian advanced manufacturing industry supplying and exporting battery-grade chemicals and materials would create over 100,000 construction and 80,000 operational jobs and add AUD$7.3 trillion in export revenue. (Note that we haven’t been able to find a link to this study online)

There has been a dramatic decline in appetite for Australian iron ore and coal both domestically and internationally, and the Australian Government has been rather slow in realising that lithium—a metal found in abundance in Australia—has the potential to not only generate serious export dollars as global demand for batteries rises over the next decade, but to also shore up skilled manufacturing jobs locally, assisting the transition and retraining of mining sector workers.

Energy Renaissance is perfectly placed to take advantage of this; it’s investment to process raw materials locally in a region already known for mining means that the company should have a captive employment market available, as well as access to global markets via the nearby port.

With the New South Wales committing to purchase over 8,000 electric buses, this should present a great opportunity for Energy Renaissance to find local customers.

The government’s Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews and the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison were also present at Energy Renaissance’s manufacturing facility launch, and were keen to jump in with their own announcement, releasing the Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Processing road map in the Commonwealth Government’s Modern Manufacturing Strategy.

The Strategy has the following goals:

• 2 years: Improved capability to bring products quickly to market, through improved market development activities and investment made in critical enablers.

• 5 years: Foster increased collaboration with relevant sectors and international supply chains, increase exports and grow private sector investment.

• 10 years: Australia seen as a regional hub for resources technology and critical minerals processing, with significant R&D advancements, retention in intellectual capital for SMEs and significant volume and value of exports.

We’ll keep you updated as Energy Renaissance’s facility comes together.

Read more about the government’s strategy here: https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/resources-technology-and-critical-minerals-processing-national-manufacturing-priority-road-map

500MW Battery Storage Project by Neoen Planned for Australia

Rendering of the 500MW Western NSW Battery Energy Storage System. Image: Neoen

Following the success of Neoen’s first battery storage project in Australia, the Hornsdale Power Reserve, as well as plans for battery storage combined with renewables projects in the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria, the company has submitted a scoping report with the appropriate NSW Government agency, outlining the importance of this large battery project as part of the Central-Orana Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) located about 100km west of Sydney, the first of the NSW government’s Renewable Energy Zones planned to drive the state towards zero emissions power generation.

According to Neoen’s scoping report, “The large-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) that would be delivered by the project would operate unlike any other device currently connected to the NSW network, and would provide a range of services with extremely fast response times to support a stable network and security of supply. The energy storage capacity provided by the project would allow for increased installation of renewable energy sources while maintaining network stability and security,”

The battery could be operational by 2023, and would be built near the site of the 1,000MW Wallerawang coal power station that was mothballed in 2014. Neoen says that the new battery would provide additional energy system support services including frequency control, and would utilise some of the infrastructure that was used by the former coal plant.

US Big Corporates Push for Zero Emissions Vehicle Regulations

With a President-elect pledging to take meaningful action on climate change, Corporate America stands ready to act and take advantage of pro-renewables and clean-tech policies. The Zero Emissions Transport Association (ZETA) is a new federal coalition “advocating for national policies that will enable 100% electric vehicle sales throughout the light-, medium-, and heavy-duty sectors by 2030."

Comprising some of America’s largest corporate entities ranging from Tesla and Rivian, through to Uber, conEdison and Duke Energy, ZETA wants to see the full adoption of electric vehicles to secure American global EV manufacturing leadership, and reduce carbon pollution and therefore, emissions.

Policy goals of ZETA include:

• Expanded incentives, which means not only lifting the per-manufacturer cap on the $7,500 consumer tax credit, but also making it a "point of sale" rebate. Other goals include a program to incentivize trade-ins of fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

• Federal emissions and efficiency performance standards that will send the "correct market signals" for faster electric vehicle deployment by the auto industry.

• New federal infrastructure investments and support for domestic manufacturing, and support for local pro-electric vehicle policies.

According to Joe Britton, the Executive Director of ZETA, “Transportation is responsible for more carbon emissions than any other sector of the U.S. economy. By embracing EVs, federal policymakers can help drive innovation, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and improve air quality and public health.”

ZETA believes that consumer incentives drive adoption of new technology, and represent one real way to drive the shift to EVs in the US. Providing credits for older combustion engined vehicles will help to speed the transition, and will also boost domestic economic growth. ZETA hopes that a Biden administration would use policy mechanisms to encourage job creation in the EV manufacturing and supply chains. Biden has already stated that he wants the federal government to move towards a 100% clean energy fleet, and wants to work closely with state governors and mayors to roll-out 500,000 new public chaging stations by 2030.

Electric car sales are increasing in market share across the world, while conbustion-engined passenger car sales are slowing. This has been further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The overall market share of plug-in vehicles is still relatively small however, comprising 326,000 or 2% of the total market in the US in 2019, 564,206 or 3.6% of the total market in Europe, and 1,180,000 or 6.8% of the market in China.

For more information visit https://www.zeta2030.org/

Source: Axios

Image: ZETA

Image: ZETA