Innovative Sri Lankan engineer takes on the world with high capacity energy storage batteries
Guided by Sri Lanka’s ancient rainwater harvesting methods – through large tanks and catchment areas, a Sri Lankan entrepreneur with engineering skills and competence is progressing quite well with his large scale project producing high energy storage batteries in facilities in Sri Lanka and the UK.
Several young, experienced and highly competent Sri Lankan engineers living here and abroad led by Pasidu Pallewela have teamed up to adapt modern technology in inventing energy storage batteries, filling a gap in the energy sector of the world, in storing a large capacity of solar and wind power, compared to other batteries that are in the market at present.
Experts say the invention is highly praiseworthy, recognised globally not only because of the involvement in the energy storage but because it’s bold enough to adopt the same engineering and technological principles that were practised in this country dating back to about 5,000 years, in rainwater storage.
Mr. Pallewela, Chairman of both UK and SL facilities, several years ago commenced the manufacturing of the energy storage units in the UK by floating a corporate entity - Stortera, UK and StorLion in Sri Lanka to manufacture storage batteries.
They have obtained ‘international’ patent rights on lithium- based energy storage systems, Flow Batteries, Active Battery Management Systems (BM), Wind Turbine Controllers and Electronic Devices.
The present society’s reliance on energy and energy-storage has prompted these engineers to launch an ‘energy storage’ system and one of the key requirements and decarbonising modern energy systems has become a task with utmost importance.
Engineers Dr. Kosala Vithanage, Buddhika Jayakody and Ceynergy Dynamic Holdings, a major partner of StorLanka, were instrumental in raising a significant amount of foreign direct funding and local investment
Employing modern world class technology they are now a world-renowned energy storage battery manufacturer and set up their Sri Lankan factory located at Aniyakande, Kandana some years ago, to export to Europe, US and Australia, among other countries.
‘StorLion’s’ long term mission is to use abundant minerals available in the country such as ilmenite, phosphate, iron and graphite to manufacture the batteries.
These batteries are unique as their life span is very long. StorLion is giving a 10-year guarantee on its batteries and once the life span is over, they would take back the old battery to reuse some parts while unwanted parts would be disposed with no harm to the environment whereas in the case of normal batteries now used for this purpose – the life span is one to three years - and these old batteries are discharged to the environment in a manner that is harmful to the environment.
The other exceptional uniqueness is that these batteries generally measure 24” in length, 12 to 18” width and little more than 6” in height and in this small space these batteries could even accommodate more than 100 Mega Watts storage.
Mr. Pallewela told the Business Times, the energy storage market has accelerated rapidly in recent years with Citigroup estimating that global battery storage markets will surge to 240GW by 2030. These levels of mass deployment are driven by the extensive development of renewable technologies such as wind and solar across the world.
He said that there appears to be a mismatch between energy availability and demand and energy storage offers a solution to this along with the added benefits of energy security, additional income streams and backup power supplies.
He said by 2026 the solar and wind storage market could go up to US$1200 billion globally compared to 2015 when it was $22 billion, and is expected to rise to $450 billion by 2022.
The StorLion manufacturing plant uses non- toxic and zero waste battery manufacturing technology while their R and D is underway to process locally available minerals such as graphite and Eppawala apatite, adding value to the raw material.
Mr. Pallewela pointed out that at the moment these minerals are exported in bulk to other countries at very low values and therefore Sri Lanka as a country is losing its valuable minerals without any significant economic or social gain. At some point in the future, the project is expected to create at least 100,000 direct and indirect employment.
Compared to the low-quality batteries that are presently imported to the country, Mr. Pallewela said that their products are of very high quality and can be used for telecom operations, off grid locations with renewable energy, electricity grid balancing, electric grid stabilisation, wind farms, Solar PV farms and in electric vehicles. This product can be used for the telecom industry in Europe and North America.
Senior engineers from the telecom industry in Sri Lanka have inspected this product and the manufacturing process and have indicated that the quality, performance and life time of these battery modules exceeds the quality, life time and performance of any imported battery module from other countries, paying almost double the price.
He said that, unfortunately, the batteries for local telecom services are being imported under the BOI facility. Due to the tax relief given to these imported batteries, the government has lost billions of rupees in tax revenue during the last five years while losing more than Rs. 20 billion in foreign expenditure. He said that they are poised to replace these imports if they are given the proper opportunity.
Stortera, UK and StorLion, Sri Lanka are employing more than 30 well qualified and highly experienced local and foreign engineers here and abroad ( more than 20 PhDs among them). For the next two years StorLion hopes to pump in around $19 million and in the next five years the amount would go up to $100 million.
Mr. Pallewela pointed out that when such massive projects are undertaken in other countries by locals, the government and other local organisations would support the project. He expects the same degree of support and they hope to acquire a significant global market share as the time progresses.
Mr. Pallewela noted that they are very happy to take a cue from Sri Lanka’s ancient rain water storage and distributing engineering technology in modelling their energy storage, while today this universally appreciated irrigation engineering marvel has been forgotten and ignored.
The company’s UK facility produces portable storage batteries.