Giga Down Under
Not so long ago, Brian Craighead, Founder and Development Director at Energy Renaissance, was working on an oil drilling rig. Now, he is doing his penance building Australia’s first lithium-ion battery gigafactory. Mind you, it is next to a service station. We had our phone interview about Energy Renaissance while he was sitting in his Tesla Model 3 SR+ at the Supercharger.
Initially some resources will have to come from overseas — particularly the US and Europe. We recently announced three new Australian supplier agreements that will contribute to 92% of our locally sourced components as we look to achieve 100% of local sourcing in the near future. Covid changed everything. Post-covid people are more supportive of domestic production, importing doesn’t look so clever anymore. Australia needs to be self-reliant. Brian decided that to make it work, he had to split the process into two stages. Initially, Energy Renaissance will import cells, but next year it will make LFP cells.