The local company increases its ambitions
A COMPANY with a foothold in both Geelong and New York has its sights set on Australia’s renewable future and wants to see more of the technology behind it designed and built here.
Scale Facilitation held a stakeholder briefing on Wednesday last week upstairs at 1915 Restaurant on the Pivot City Estate in North Geelong, moderated by Scale Facilitation Advisory Board Member Roxie Bennett.
The business networking and finance company aims to remove barriers to companies bringing their products to market and helps innovators find the right strategic partners.
Scale Facilitation Founder and Managing Director David A. Collard, who grew up in Geelong, addressed the crowd via video conference call, as did Lt. Gen. (Retired) Mark C. Schwartz, Advisory Board Member of the US Army.
Mr. Collard said Scale Facilitation recently celebrated several milestones, such as registering with the US Patent and Trade Office, launching its Access New York program for Australian start-ups and SMEs, and the expansion of its Australian and US offices, including occupying an entire floor of New York’s One World Trade Center from the fourth quarter of this year.
Recharge Industries, part of the Scale Facilitation portfolio, uses artificial intelligence and multinational partnerships to research lithium-ion batteries and build advanced battery manufacturing capabilities in Australia, and Recharge Industries’ scale lead, David Hay, also spoke at Wednesday’s session.
He said Recharge Industries was working to build a facility in Australia initially capable of generating 5 gigawatt hours (GWh) of storage capacity per year and eventually increasing to 30 GWh, with the aim of replacing the strings of supply in the United States by Australian chains.
“We have a unique opportunity to build and shape this from the ground up.”
Mr Collard said China produced around 80% of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, but there were huge opportunities for Australia to enter this market, given that Australia produced a large part of the raw materials that went into these batteries.
Asked about the potential for building electric vehicles locally, Mr Hay said: “We really see an opportunity for Australia to get back into manufacturing in the future, so it’s an exciting look into the future, but I don’t look too far ahead. »
Mr Collard did not give details, but said an order form had already been received from one of the ‘largest car manufacturers’ for the development of a prototype battery, which would go through a study feasibility and further testing “to be included in their Formula 1 vehicle in the 2026 season”.
“So we have relationships that are already at that stage,” he said.
“The other aspect is that people naturally focus on vehicles, but you have supply lines within them.
“You have some huge industries in the green transition to solar and wind – which capture energy, if you will, but they all need to store it.”
