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Hong Kong Earthshot Prize winner GRST to work with Leoch on climate-friendly battery tech

  • Hong Kong-listed Leoch is looking for more climate-friendly production technology to meet customers’ sustainability demands, says its chairman and CEO

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A GRST environment-friendly lithium-ion battery deployed in a golf cart. Photo: SCMP Handout
Leoch International Technology, a supplier of batteries to some of the world’s biggest telecommunications operators, has teamed up with GRST, the Hong Kong green tech start-up that won Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, to commercialise the latter’s sustainable batteries technology.
Hong Kong-listed Leoch, which generates most of its revenues from lead acid batteries sold to the automotive and telecoms sectors, is growing its lithium-ion battery business and is looking for more climate-friendly production technology to better meet customers’ sustainability demands, said its chairman and CEO, Dong Li.

“The growth for lithium batteries has been very strong because of new applications, especially for transportation and energy storage,” he said in an interview. “In the telecommunications sector, when procuring energy storage products, all the big companies are asking suppliers to provide their future plans for supply-chain carbon emissions reduction in the next five to 10 years.”

The global market for lithium-ion batteries is projected to more than triple in size to US$257 billion by 2030 from US$70.8 billion last year, while that of lead acid batteries is expected to more than double to US$121 billion from US$50 billion in the same period, according to Statistica.

Within the telecoms market where data centre operators require so-called uninterruptible power supply by installing backup batteries, demand for batteries is expected to rise in tandem with data storage demand from the proliferation of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and Internet of Things applications.

‘All the big companies are asking suppliers to provide their future plans for supply-chain carbon emissions reduction in the next five to 10 years,’ says Dong Li, chairman and CEO of Leoch. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
‘All the big companies are asking suppliers to provide their future plans for supply-chain carbon emissions reduction in the next five to 10 years,’ says Dong Li, chairman and CEO of Leoch. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

In April, GRST and Leoch, which has 10 production bases in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia and generated revenues of 13.5 billion yuan (US$1.86 billion) last year, inked a non-binding agreement to explore potential collaboration.

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