The dollar figures being produced in the battery supply chain are dizzying. While demand is strong one of them, Redflow, went into voluntary administration recently, despite government support and several successful deals including an MOU for a battery at Stanwell’s $100 million project near Rockhampton.

It was also planning a Queensland factory to manufacture batteries at scale. However, despite strong support in taxpayer funds support from equity markets evaporated.

It recently raised $3.2 million, which was only 23 per cent of the total in the entitlement offer. It had $12 million in the bank in May.

While Redflow’s administration is unique to it, the failure is a black mark for the sector where the scale of some of the projects offers groundbreaking change and diversification for Queensland, not least of which in the state’s north-west region, which is facing its own existential crisis with the phased shutdown of Glencore’s copper operations in Mt Isa.

The State Government is already pumping taxpayer dollars into the industry in the hope it can deliver diversification and a new and green industry for Queensland. Included in that was a $75 million demonstration plant in Townsville for vanadium, cobalt and rare earths, all used in battery production.

Nascent Brisbane-based battery producer, Li-S Energy has set its sights on a potentially big and ambitious scale up with a 500MWh project on the drawing board, worth somewhere around the $250 million mark. That’s a massive step up from its current 2MWh facility in Victoria where it has partnerships with Deakin University.

Chief executive Dr Lee Finniear said the company was not about to rely on the equity markets to meet the total, nor was it about to mount a near term challenge China in the market for car batteries.

He said scale up “could take some time’’ and would be phased. It also must stitch up offtake agreements.

Right now, the drone and aviation markets are being targeted while in the US, lithium sulphur companies are already getting a foothold in the electric vehicle market.

While it can’t be compared to Redflow, the company said State and Federal governments are likely to be in the funding mix.

That’s not unusual for the energy storage industry. One of its leaders, Genex, scooped up hundreds of millions in public funds for its north Queensland pumped hydro project, while the Snowy II scheme and the two other pumped hydro schemes in Queensland are also government funded and will cost tens of billions of dollars.

Li-S has big ambitions with its lightweight lithium sulphur battery and has not ruled out building the facility in Australia.

It will also deliver sample battery cells to customers in the next few months

At the other end of the supply chain, big dollar amounts are being touted for mining projects in the north-west.

QEM released details of its scoping study on a vanadium mine near Julia Creek which could cost about $1 billion and projected revenue was estimated at $11 billion over the life of the mine, plus another $10 billion from the sale of transport fuel contained in the oil shale that sits on top of the vanadium which is mineral used in batteries for projects like wind and solar farms.

The project is also nicely aligned with the $5 billion CopperString transmission project and recently sold off its renewable energy.

While that alone is staggering, there are a handful of similar projects at various stages in Julia Creek.

One of them, Vecco Group, has signed up with Idemitsu and Sumitomo Electric to develop a vanadium supply chain which covered mining to energy storage, which is a marked shift from the Australia’s traditional mentality of digging and shipping.

Earlier this year, Vecco managing director Thomas Northcott said the demand in Australia for medium and deep energy storage, which vanadium batteries cater to, us expected to hit 100GWh.

Construction of its $800 million Julia Creek mine and processing centre is expected this year with about 300 jobs generated.

Late last year, Multicom Resources started construction of its St Elmo vanadium and high purity alumina project, near Julia Creek. The $400 million project is estimated to result in an economic benefit to Queensland of between $1.34 billion to $1.92 billion. Royalties are estimated to be approximately $325 million.

The $240 million Richmond Vanadium recently lodged its environmental impact statement and Critical Minerals Group has a $400 million project in the Julia Creek region for which it received a $2 million State Government grant to help built a demonstration centre.

Of course, there is no guarantee all of these projects will move to development or even get additional government funding, but there is little doubt they will need it.