ASX-listed battery company Redflow handed to administrators after failing to find backers

Brisbane battery company Redflow has been placed in voluntary administration and its shares suspended from trade just weeks after unveiling plans for a 5 MWh project with Queensland’s energy generators, Stanwell Corporation.

Richard Hughes and David Orr from Deloitte were appointed voluntary administrators of Redflow and three subsidiaries by its board on Friday, not long after requesting a trading halt.

Redflow (ASX: RFX) shares have fallen from a high of $0.286 11 months ago to $0.097 when trade was suspended. It listed in 2010 at $1 a share.

The company, founded in 2005 by brothers Chris and Alex Winter, built the world’s smallest commercially available zinc-bromine flow battery, the ZBM3, as well as the Energy Pod200, which holds 20 x 10 kWh ZBM3 flow batteries.

The batteries use water-based electrolytes, which are longer lasting that lithium ion and also less prone to fire and thus safer for critical infrastructure.

Redflow has a range of large projects here and in the US for battery storage, including with the US Dept of Defence, and received grant funding from the state government, most recently $12 million a year ago for zinc-bromine flow battery for Energy Queensland in Ipswich.

While the business had plenty of Queensland and federal government support, it was unable to find the matching funding required in the private sector in a nine-month hunt for cash to build a new factory to manufacture its “X10” batteries at scale. They were currently being produced in Thailand.

Last month the business signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with energy generator Stanwell Corporation to deploy of Redflow’s X10 battery solution in a large-scale project of up to 400 MWh. It was meant to be the potential anchor order for Redflow’s planned manufacturing plant.

“Based on encouraging external financial advice, Redflow considered and pursued the equity funding sources available to it, but in the current market, has been unable to attract the required equity support,” the company said in a statement.

“In the absence of such support, the Directors believe that Redflow is unable to continue as a going concern and have no option but to place the Redflow Group into voluntary administration.”

The administrators will review and assess Redflow’s business and financial position before making recommendations on its future.