‘Saving money, not the world’: How a former coal baron turned green
Businessman Trevor St Baker, at first glance, appears an unlikely champion of green energy.
The former coal baron and energy entrepreneur recently hit the headlines over a multimillion-dollar deal he and business partner Brian Flannery struck late last year when they sold the coal-fired Vales Point power generator in NSW at a massive profit to Czech billionaire Pavel Tykac’s Sev.en Energy Group for $200 million, after controversially buying it from the NSW Coalition state government in 2015 for $1 million.
Trevor St Baker is the founder of St Baker Energy Innovation Fund.Credit: Jessica Hromas
But look through the list of companies backed by the St Baker Innovation Fund and none are fossil fuel-focused. Instead, the fund is providing start-up cash to seed remote power solutions for Torres Strait Islanders, has backed electric air ambulance innovators AMSL Aero, and is working on behind-the-meter battery systems for high-profile Australian sports stadiums.
Established businesses on the fund’s books are turning into energy powerhouses. There’s its sizeable investment in the $255 million NASDAQ-listed fast charging station manufacturer Tritium, a stake in Evie Networks’ ultra-fast charging stations that are rolling out in Australia, a multi-modal urban eMobility business called Revel in New York, and exclusive distribution rights in Australia for one of China’s largest EV makers – BYD electric cars.
“Our approach is about reducing emissions, not to save the world but to save money,” says St Baker, happily admitting he is no environmental warrior.
“At the moment, I’m as green as anybody, but more importantly, we’re affordably green.”
The fund’s latest venture is building a lithium-ion phosphate battery manufacturing plant in the Philippines capable of churning out enough batteries on an annual basis to store more than a gigawatt-hour of electricity, enough to power about 725,000 homes.
The StB Giga-Factory, based in the Philippines’ free-trade zone at Filinvest Innovation Park in New Clark City, will ramp up production next year, starting with 150 megawatt hours before hitting full capacity across two production lines by 2030, St Baker said.
“We expect to be cash breakeven in a very short period of time, and we’re not sure that we will need all of the projected $10 million equity investment,” he said.
Lithium batteries are currently the dominant global technology for storing the renewable energy primarily generated from wind and solar that is needed to transition the world away from polluting fossil fuels. Batteries are mainly used in electric vehicles and homes but also power businesses like sport and entertainment venues and shopping centres.
The factory will export to the Asia Pacific and target Australia, the US and India. “We’re just replicating battery-making facilities that are already meeting market demand,” St Baker said.
“Our approach is about reducing emissions, not to save the world, but to save money.”
Trevor St Baker
“Our battery products will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve fuel independence, improve electricity reliability, decrease the grid reliance for EV charging at peak system demand times, and provide major electricity cost savings for households and businesses, and transport users generally,” he said.
The fund already has a subsidiary business in the Philippines on the outskirts of Manila in Antipolo where it manufactures and assembles e-tricycles, an electric version of the motorised three-wheel taxis common in many Asian cities.
“Electric transport uses half the primary energy at a sixth of the cost of fuelling a normal vehicle for driving,” St Baker maintains, adding the fund is bumping up its support for Evie Networks and providing cash for Evie’s expansion into the US.
Brisbane-based Evie, run by chief executive Chris Mills, last week said it will set up a North American headquarters in Phoenix to oversee its US expansion.
“Evie Networks will establish electric vehicle charging stations across Arizona and expects to have its first US sites up and running within 18 months,” Mills said.
The company has about 140 charging stations around Australia and is constructing 150 more over the next year. “We’re escalating that because the rollout of public charging stations is obviously necessary,” says St Baker.
The company has big plans to replicate its Australian network in the US by targeting sites where people work, live and play, with the share of electric vehicles expected to dramatically expand over the next few years. Evie has an open-access charging format that allows all electric vehicle owners access to the network, including Teslas which run on a propriety system.
“We hope that having taken Tritium to be a global brand, we will take Evie Networks global as well,” St Baker said.
Australia is falling behind the rest of the world in its adoption of electric vehicles. The International Energy Agency estimates only 3.8 per cent of new vehicle sales were electric last year, compared with 8 per cent in the US, 23 per cent in the UK and 25 per cent in Europe.
St Baker said the fund was in discussions through its “energy decarb” arm to provide behind-the-meter battery capacity for five major Australian sporting stadiums, including the Western Sydney Stadium in Parramatta, that will turn them into green venues. Parramatta Stadium was approached for comment.
Another company in the venture capital fund, Mirabou remote power solutions, has signed initial agreements with the Torres Strait Island Council to explore electrifying the island’s power networks, which currently run on diesel generators.
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