Australian energy storage company Redflow Limited (ASX: RFX) reports it has completed a successful turnaround during 2017-18 and is focussed on growth in the current year.

In a letter to shareholders accompanying the company's 2017-18 results, Redflow reports that the past year had seen the company successfully set up its wholly owned factory in Thailand, where it now produces its unique zinc-bromine flow batteries.

Chairman Brett Johnson said Redflow's primary focus was on producing high-quality batteries to meet the commercial and technical requirements of its customers. "Redflow's priority is to maintain an efficient, high-quality manufacturing facility that, with increasing sales revenue, will progressively improve our gross profit margin," he said.

"Our engineering team continues to focus on reducing the production cost of the Redflow battery while ensuring a consistent high-quality product. This is critical to ensuring that as production increases, so does the margin on each battery. At the same time, our Research and Development team is looking at next-generation product development and other innovation ideas."

CEO Tim Harris said Redflow was targeting markets including lead-acid battery replacement for telecommunication towers as well as energy storage applications such as on-grid and off-grid residential customers and commercial, industrial, mining, micro-grid and remote power. "Redflow continues to pursue opportunities across the Asia-Pacific region and southern Africa," he said.

"We have discussions underway with a number of customers which are in the negotiation and/or trial phase. We are busy re-establishing our sales and marketing, training and aftersales support infrastructure and our focus is on developing a pipeline of orders which will support the ramp-up of manufacturing production as quickly as possible. As with the relaunch of any major commercial product, it will take some time to gain traction, but we are pleased with progress to date."

Redflow's letter cited other milestones of the past 12 months that laid the foundation for future success. These include:

1. Recruiting talented executives such as Tim Harris as Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer and Trudy Walsh as Chief Financial Officer
2. Successfully raising $18.1 million in additional capital, consisting of $7.5 million in private placements and a further $10.6 million in a fully underwritten rights issue, and
3. Continued board renewal including the appointment of Jenny Macdonald to chair the Audit & Risk Committee.

Mr Johnson said Redflow's search for an additional director with significant transformational manufacturing experience was well underway. "Once appointed, this director can assist the Board and management through the process required to mass produce our product," he said.

Redflow | redflow.com