Stationary battery storage company Gelion set up for active 2024

(Partial Video Transcript)

Lithium-sulphur may fuel green transition

JN: As the world moves in its transition between fossil fuels and renewable energy technologies, new tech is being discovered all the time to help us get there. One such company to power that transition is Gelion. It's developed the next generation of safe stationary storage technology to maximise reliable energy storage solutions for these stand-alone power systems.

It's been a busy month for Gelion, the company we're talking now to, and the chief executive officer (CEO) is John Wood, joining us on the line now from Sydney. John, welcome. You're coming up to your first anniversary as CEO of the business. Before we take a look at how your first year has been, just explain more about the technologies you're using and what Gelion is doing.

JW: Yeah, Jeremy, look, Gelion is a battery innovation company. We are aiming to deliver success for our shareholders by attaining leadership in two particular areas of technology, and that is lithium-sulfur technology and zinc-hybrid technologies.

JN: Before we go into more detail about that, as I said, you've now been there almost a year. What did you bring to this? Because we spoke to Gelion over a year ago, and we were then talking about the early developments that have been going on. What have you been doing in that first year of your appointment, and what skill set did you bring to enable the company to move on?

Marketing innovation while building relationships

JW: I'm a specialist in commercialising innovation successfully, globally. I've been a CEO four times and, on four occasions, the technology that I've represented has indeed achieved its success internationally.

As well as commercialising the technology for the companies that I've built for the shareholders, I've specialised in building major relationships, strategic relationships, and outcomes in those companies. In each case, it's been major partnerships that have been formed for the companies, and in some cases, major acquisitions of the companies by strategic investors.

JN: So taking that and taking these new technologies, what are the use cases for them? What are the use cases for zinc and lithium sulphur being developed by the group? And of course, then, what's got to look at what the target markets are, and what you're working towards in terms of trying to achieve some sort of commercialisation?

Improving safety, reducing costs

JW: Lithium-sulphur is the technology that we see being the next generation of lithium-ion technology, going beyond lithium-ion. Basically, if you think about it today, batteries for transportation are, frankly, heavy. We need to improve safety, and we need to reduce costs.

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