Member Info for economist2023

Is this the first time we’ve seen Mkango call out DG INTPA and DG GROW? I think it is and am wondering if it is significant

Much appreciated, fairlysolvent! Shame the share price hasn’t reacted (and has dipped a little), but not that surprising. We need more confirmed orders to come through.

A few days ago, Australian Vanadium Limited and its subsidiary submitted their bid for the 500 MWh tender for a VFB in Kalgoorlie, Australia - see here https://www.linkedin.com/posts/australian-vanadium-limited_western-australias-energy-future-will-be-activity-7424272809834622978-tvD-?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAzhrf0B9dsAiDy1Rqtez-z7KjWlS-Dd8nY.

Last year, in some of Australian Vanadium Limited’s investor presentations, Cellcube was named as the technology provider for this bid. However, in the most recent presentation, from December 2025, the technology provider is no longer specified.

The LinkedIn post by AVL announcing submission of this bid was liked by 5 Invinity employees by my count, and 0 Cellcube employees, and it was also shared by Shane McBee of Invinity. Similarly, the AVL subsidiary VSUN’s post was also liked by Invinity employees and not Cellcube employees.

This is obviously highly speculative, but the removal of a reference to Cellcube in AVL’s latest presentations on this project, together with the LinkedIn action destined above, suggests to me that Invinity may have replaced Cellcube as the battery provider for this bid. If this is the case, then we have another very promising tender bid result to look forward to. The preferred supplier will be announced in June 2026.

It seems to me based on information shared in this forum that Invinity has made significant progress in terms of establishing/scaling manufacturing capacity in the UK, Canada, China, India, and the US over the last month. Hopefully we’ll get RNS updates on this progress soon. For the share price to really rocket, however, I believe we need confirmation of one or more large sales orders.

Https://invinity.com/usa/

Straight from the website!:

“nvinity is moving ahead with its U.S. manufacturing plans through a new MOU with a U.S. partner. This gives us strong domestic production capacity and a regional supply chain for our VFBs. Using our partner’s California facilities, we’ll handle stack production, module assembly, and final system integration—close to current and future customer projects. With two dedicated stack lines planned, the site will be able to produce more than 1 GWh of Endurium batteries each year.

What this means for customers:

- U.S.-based electrolyte supply: We’re lining up a new North American supplier for key materials, with engineering for local electrolyte production expected to start in 2026. This strengthens supply security and lowers logistics costs.

- Better tax incentives: Our U.S. manufacturing meets domestic content rules, helping projects qualify for enhanced ITCs and PTCs, improving overall project economics.

- Compliance with FEOC rules: The facility is expected to fully comply with FEOC rules, reducing regulatory risk and improving project bankability.

Overall, this means lower costs, stronger project confidence, and a scalable U.S. platform for long-duration energy storage.”

Https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanemcbee?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Invinity has hired Shane McBee from Eos Energy. He’s a business development executive - seems an excellent hire by Invinity as it’s not easy to poach executives from your closest rivals. Very promising for the North American business.

I listened to the whole thing and would encourage others to do so - there is a lot of interesting info in there.

One encouraging takeaway from the interview is that Invinity appears to making progress in China. I have summarised below the key points that I can remember:

- Jonathan Marren reiterated that Invinity is planning to both manufacture and sell its batteries in the Chinese market. It will ensure its IP is protected.

- Jonathan was in Hong Kong for all of last week on business. I presume he was meeting with International Resources Limited, its Vanadium supply partner from the Consortium announced last September.

- On January 11th, Jonathan ran the Xiamen marathon (!). He was invited to compete by the Xiamen local government as a guest of honor. Presumably he was also meeting with Xiamen C&D Corporation around this time.

Based on the above, it sounds to me like we should expect to hear news on China very soon. Hopefully including the first royalty fee from UESNT.

News coming out this morning on the G7 meeting is, unsurprisingly, highly positive for both Mkango's downstream and upstream operations.

https://eutoday.net/g7-weighs-rare-earth-price-floor-to-cut-china-reliance/

Upstream: (Songwe/Pulawy): In the above article, the German finance minister is quoted as reporting that the meeting included discussions of price-floors and supply partnerships to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals.

Downstream: The German finance minister also "called for faster progress on recycling, describing it as having “big potential” to reduce dependencies and broaden supply." South Korea's finance minister "highlighted recycling of critical minerals as a means to improve supply resilience".

In addition to the US officials that visited Songwe according to Mkango's twitter post today, its also highly positive that the country manager from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was there too.

IFC just yesterday announced it will be funding the Sovereign Metals graphite project in Malawi. https://www.mining.com/web/rio-tinto-backed-sovereign-metals-partners-with-world-banks-ifc-for-malawi-graphite-project/

IFC back in October announced it is launching a $1 billion fund for critical minerals and metals funds in Africa and Latin America. https://appiancapitaladvisory.com/appian-and-ifc-partner-in-new-us1-billion-critical-minerals-and-metals-fund-for-emerging-markets/

IFC is also headquarters in Washington DC...

Very good spot. Also, if you follow the link to the job ad on the Invinity website, the job description includes the following:

"Key Responsibilities:

· Lead the Production Engineering teams based across sites in Motherwell, Bathgate, Vancouver and future Invinity Energy sites (e.g. US)."

So a strong hint that they a still planning to establish production in the US!

Here is a news article on the project: https://renewablesnow.com/news/invenergy-seeks-permit-for-93-6-mw-scottish-borders-wind-project-1285885/

The article also mentions that "Invenergy UK recently completed the installation of the 81-MW Pencloe Wind Farm in Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway and is preparing to launch commercial operations in early 2026". I wonder if they might also look to add a LDES battery to this development. I saw on LinkedIn that George Giles (Invinity sales director) visited Pencloe last week...

I just checked latest planning applications for energy projects in Scotland and see that Invenergy has applied to develop a huge wind farm with a 420 MWh LDES battery. While the application documents state that the battery supplier will ultimately be determined from a competitive tendering process, it is also clear that Invenergy has Invinity in mind as the supplier - for example, Invinity provided the fire risk assessment and the indicative layout diagram.

The documents can be found here: https://www.energyconsents.scot/ApplicationDetails.aspx?cr=ECU00005192

Construction of the development is proposed to start in 2031 and last 28 months, so its quite far away, but this is still highly encouraging to see. Invenergy is the second largest renewable energy developer in the US, so huge validation to see they are planning to potentially use an Invinity battery. Also good to see another potential large UK project for Invinity that is not part of the cap and floor scheme.

Https://argylldev.com/news/funding-partner-secured

Good to see this project progressing.

Yes seems that they met with the DFC, which is located just down the road from the White House. Plenty of other institutions they could've met with too though.

Huge

Just noticed that in addition to the RESourceEU plan, the EC also made amendments to the CRMA today that seem very beneficial to Hypromag Germany. In particular, they are now requiring that products made in the EU utilize magnets made from recycling critical raw materials, and that the recycling must be done in the EU:

"to ensure that secondary raw materials are effectively used in new products, the Commission requires that magnets in products will need to contain shares of recycled critical raw materials. Those recycled materials must come from pre-and post-consumer waste recycled inside the EU."

See this link: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_25_2886

Indeed it seems a shame that Hypromag isn't a CRMA strategic project. That said, it isn't clear whether the ResourceEU scheme will only be supporting CRMA projects or will have a wider reach. The article mentions price floors, which would support the whole industry. Hopefully we'll get some good detail in the announcement next week.

Very bullish article published just now by Reuters https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/eu-economy-industry-seven/

Some highlights:

- Next Wednesday the EU will unveil ResourceEU, an Economic Security Doctrine to make Europe's industry more self-sufficient and includes a plan for critical raw materials.

- A quick solution is to immediately allocate 3 billion euros from the EU's budget to the most urgent 25 of the 60 strategic projects in the rare earths and raw materials sector listed by the Commission, one EU official told Reuters.

- Recycling will be a major pillar to make up for the dearth of existing European mines and long development time for new production to come online.

The plot thickens - just found Andrew Monk from VSA commented under Quino's LinkedIn post: "if Quino Energy and Invinity Energy Systems can work together thanks to Atri - that is amazing "

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/quinoenergy_quino-energy-closes-10m6m-in-series-a-activity-7393672693281091584-Pmn8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAzhrf0B9dsAiDy1Rqtez-z7KjWlS-Dd8nY

Https://www.manilatimes.net/2025/11/10/tmt-newswire/globenewswire/quino-energy-closes-10m6m-in-series-a-funding-from-atri-energy-transition/2220174

Very interesting read, particularly this quote: "Because our organic electrolyte can be used in vanadium flow battery hardware with minimal modification, we will be able to scale rapidly in partnership with our friends and allies in the flow battery industry."