Redflow batteries now made in Thailand

The first battery electrode stacks have been produced by Redflow at its factory in Thailand.

The battery stack is a critical part of the Redflow ZBM2 zinc-bromine flow battery, containing electrodes that charge and discharge the battery by ‘plating’ and ‘deplating’ zinc on a membrane.

This is a process that can sustain 10 kilowatt-hours of energy storage capacity throughout the battery’s operating life. Redflow produced its first battery components from the factory last month.

The company reports that the factory has set up and qualified its battery stack machines and processes, optimising them for Thai environmental conditions.

Redflow Limited Managing Director and CEO Richard Aird said assembly of the battery stacks in Thailand had gone according to plan.

“The manufacturing team is very happy with the consistent quality and acceptable yield metrics of the stack line,” he said.

As per the timeline outlined at Redflow’s 2017 annual general meeting, achieving this battery stack milestone means that Redflow’s Thai factory is on track to progressively validate quality components and subassemblies so it can produce complete batteries by June 2018.

Redflow last year decided to relocate its battery manufacturing from North America to Thailand, to be closer to its most lucrative markets, in Australia, Oceania and southern Africa, and to reduce production costs. Redflow’s Thai subsidiary has signed a three-year lease on a 1500-square-metre building at the Hemaraj Chonburi Industrial Estate, part of the IEAT free trade zone, 110 km southeast of Bangkok and 25 km from the Laem Chabang deep sea container port.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/corund

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook