Superconductor Week - Industry News Releases

Zenergy Power plc: First Day on London Stock Exchange

London, UK, August 22: Zenergy Power plc (AIM:ZEN), the specialist manufacturer and developer of commercial applications for superconductive materials, is today pleased to announce the admission of its ordinary shares to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange ('AIM'). Teather and Greenwood is acting as nominated adviser and broker to the Group.

Admission Statistics
Admission price: 84p
Number of ordinary shares in issue upon admission: 36,090,582
Market capitalisation upon admission at admission price: £30m

Business of the Group
The Group is comprised of three operating subsidiaries located in Germany, USA and Australia. All three of the Group's subsidiaries are established market participants in their respective regions in the commercialisation and development of applications for superconductive materials.

Superconductive materials are capable of conducting electricity without any resistance and were first discovered in 1911 in what was to prove to be one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Since that time two major factors have prevented the widespread deployment of superconductor materials:
1. their need to be operated at prohibitively low temperatures; and
2. lack of availability of low-cost industrial production processes.

The first breakthrough in terms of the realisation of commercial applications for superconductor materials came in 1987 with the discovery of a new breed of materials known as high temperature superconductors ('HTS'). These new materials displayed the same resistance free conductive properties as standard 'low temperature materials' but could be operated at far higher temperatures similar to that of liquid nitrogen - a relatively inexpensive, safe and commonly available cryogen. This discovery substantially altered the economics for the use and adoption of superconductive materials, which could now be operated using standard conduction cooling technologies and were still capable of delivering over 100 times the power density of alternative copper based solutions.

Very quickly the commercial potential of this first generation of HTS (‘1G’) was realised and the Group is currently extensively engaged in a range of commercial activities with a number of different 1G products with existing sales and growing revenues. To date, the Group has identified a number of significant applications in the electrical and industrial equipment markets and is currently introducing its first large-scale commercial product for use in the industrial metals sector. Further to this the Group is also in an advanced stage of development of a specialist HTS ‘fault current limiter’ which the Directors expect to have widespread applications in the global utilities sector. Fault current limiters are installed by utility companies to provide protection for power station equipment and to help prevent power ‘blackouts’.

Press Release
Following many years of research an effective low-cost process for the production of 1G HTS materials on an industrial scale has remained elusive. In an effort to lower production costs of HTS the industry has developed a second generation of HTS ('2G'), based on the same class of materials as before but capable of being manufactured using a thin film technology using various deposition techniques.

Further to its ongoing commercial activities in 1G applications Zenergy Power has since 2003 been developing its own proprietary lower-cost production techniques which it believes to be advantageous over alternative methods currently being developed by other industry participants. Furthermore, Zenergy Power believes that the successful development of these processes will place it at the forefront of delivering cost effective industrial HTS applications that will play a key role in the commercialisation and deployment of superconductor materials. It is then the intention of the Group to exploit its current commercial relationships to derive value from its technology within a wide range of sectors including renewable energy production, industrial applications and national power distribution. To date these relationships include agreements with Bültmann GmbH and Delta Star Inc as well as joint project work with Converteam SAS (formerly Alstom Power Conversion) and a number of ongoing discussions with several companies in the US utility and the power generation sector.

Over €40m has previously been invested into the research and development of the Group's various proprietary technologies. The Group is debt free, boasts a leading research and development team including more than 15 PhDs or advanced degrees based in three countries and a patent portfolio with 17 patents and over 45 patent applications based on 20 patent families. It is the intention of the Group to continue to derive revenues from a range of products based on 1G HTS wires. The Group has generated in excess of $1 million of sales since 2003 whilst developing its new lower cost production processes for the manufacture of 2G materials. The Group is currently inadvanced stages of its development activities and looks forward to reporting on further progress as and when appropriate.

Mike Fitzgerald, Non-Executive Chairman, commented: ‘The way in which we produce, consume and distribute energy is a key social issue that concerns everyone from industrial corporations, Governments and technologists right through to private households and individual consumers. The importance of this issue has been so compelling that to date we have already witnessed a huge level of investment in new technologies, some of which will play a significant role in our future and others that will not.

However, it is the enabling technologies - those which improve the efficiency, costs and usability of these emerging technologies - that very often flourish. Low cost superconductor materials such as those being developed and commercialised by Zenergy Power are exactly that and should be viewed as the fibre optics ofthe energy sector. It is with great pleasure that we bring the Group to the AIM market and I am in no doubt that the increased profile and status afforded to the Group as a result will be a key accelerator in the commercialisation of its technology.’

Copies of the Zenergy Power AIM Admission Document are available from the offices of Teather & Greenwood Limited.