Supercharge Australia has announced a new initiative aimed at driving onshore lithium battery innovation, by challenging 11 pre-selected start-ups to deliver ground-breaking new technologies or ancillary services in the field.

Supercharge Australia is a partnership between EnergyLab, an Australasia climate tech start-up accelerator, and New Energy Nexus, which describes itself as an ‘ecosystem’ of funds and accelerators in the clean energy.

The new initiative, the Supercharge Australia Innovation Challenge, is designed to capture more of the lithium value chain within Australia – currently, Australia’s lithium battery value chain represents just 1% of global product value, even though we produce 60% of the world’s lithium.

Selected by an expert panel from CSIRO, Boundless, New Energy Nexus and EnergyLab, the eleven startups include Gelion; a battery storage company based in Sydney developing new lithium sulphur and lithium-silicon-sulphur battery technologies which purport to have improved performance, cost and safety.

All eleven start-ups will be matched with mentors and receive coaching and support when pitching their offerings. The initiative also wants to encourage collaboration between companies. Like any challenge, this one will have winners, with those start-ups deemed the best winning cash and membership with EnergyLab at an awards night in March.

You can read the full article here at Renew Economy: Clean Energy News and Analysis.