Lithium batteries are considered one of the keys to making the use of renewable energy more widespread and affordable.

They're used to store excess energy to be used at other times. Listen Duration: 3 minutes 53 seconds 3 m 53 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Jemma Green, sustainability expert, Curtin University, on the growing price parity of lithium batteries and solar to diesel and grid costs ( Babs McHugh ) Download 1.8 MB

That's particularly important for remote communities and mine sites which are reliant on diesel for generating energy.

Lithium batteries, on a smaller scale, are already widely used in consumer goods - electronics, computers, mobile phones and televisions.

Research fellow with the Sustainability Policy Institute at Curtin University, Jemma Green, says the price of larger lithium batteries is plunging.

"The cost is coming down dramatically," she said.

"In some parts of Australia, it's already at grid parity where remote communities are on diesel, and it's been found that solar and batteries combined are cheaper than diesel power generation."

Ms Green says storing renewable energy in lithium batteries will soon be as of much benefit in off-grid situations.

"Within the next 12 to 24 months, during peak pricing times, battery storage will reach parity with the grid in capital cities."

The most rapidly growing use for lithium batteries is in electric vehicles. There are 160,000 of them sold globally and by 2050 that's projected to rise to 40 million.

The demand for lithium carbonate to make the batteries is only set to grow, and that's driving the development of technology to find new sources.

Currently there are three basic forms that lithium occurs in: hard rock, deposits in saline lakes and brine, volcanic clays. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 11 seconds 4 m 11 s Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Sustainability specialist Jemma Green, Curtin Uni; Adrian Griffin, Cobre Montana. The dropping cost and rising use of lithium batteries driving new technology ( Babs McHugh ) Download 1.9 MB

Lithium is mined from hard rock in Western Australia where 36 per cent of the worlds supply comes from the Greenbushes Mine in the state's south-west.

Lithium that exists in saline lakes and other brines are harvested first as salt from which the lithium carbonate is extracted, these are found mostly in South America and some in China.

Volcanic clays which contain lithium are mainly found in Nevada, USA.

A new process for extracting lithium

Now Perth company Cobre Montana has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to look at unlocking the lithium that exists in mica-rich rocks, known as lepidolite.

Managing director Adrian Griffin describes lepidolite as 'the ore everyone's forgotten'.

"It's possibly the most abundant of lithium sources but it's been a little difficult to process using conventional technology.

"As a consequence people have tended to mine the other minerals and throw the lepidolite away.

"The companies that control lithium production around the world are generally industrial mineral producers or chemical companies.

"So lithium has generally been only 10 to maybe 20 per cent of their total revenue stream, and as a consequence it hasn't commanded much of a focus."

Cobre Montana has secured exclusive licensing rights, in Australia, to the recovery process for lithium carbonate from mica which is also known as sheet silicates.

Adrian Griffin says being able to extract lithium from lepidolite doesn't have to mean new mining operations.

"Globally there are mine dumps (waste ore and rocks) with vast quantities of lepidolite sitting in them, there are also a lot of hard rock deposits that have abundant lepidolites and never been mined."

Mr Griffin says lithium batteries are already widely used outside of consumer goods applications.

"It has to a large extent, in many applications, replaced standby generator sets.

"It's much easier when you've got a power failure just to turn the switch on, rather than firing up your diesel generator that hasn't been used for three or four years and finding that it fails."