Press Releases

YVERDON LES BAINS, Switzerland and DALLAS, June 1, 2016 – Leclanché S.A.’s lithium-ion battery cell production facility - located in Willstaett, Germany - is fully operational after a minor fire incident which occurred in early April.

Since mid-May, just a few weeks after ramp-up of the company’s in-house back-up machinery, Leclanché’s facility is running at a steady production output. The production level is now sufficient to ensure that delivery requirements for its various projects will be met.

CTO of Leclanché Pierre Blanc commented “This fast restart was possible thanks to the safety setup that prevented any propagation of the incident, and thereby left the vast majority of the machinery unaffected. This allowed us to quickly recover a sufficient level of production. We are now focusing on the full recovery of our production capacity.”

“Thanks to the robust contingency and business continuation plans built on our 100 years of industrial heritage, we swiftly responded to this incident to restart the production plant within a few weeks. The in-house time-tested processes and know-how helped us to completely prevent any injuries to any personnel and undesirable environment impact. We are confident that we will meet all our customer delivery commitments,” said Anil Srivastava, CEO, Leclanché.

About Leclanché

Leclanché is a fully vertically integrated battery energy storage solution provider. It delivers a wide range of turnkey energy storage solutions for homes, small offices, large industries, electricity grids, as well as hybridization for mass transport systems such as bus fleets and ferries. Established in 1909, Leclanché has been a reliable partner for battery energy storage solutions for over 100 years. Founded in the tradition of Georges Leclanché, the inventor of the dry cell battery, Leclanché today has a rich portfolio of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) that include bespoke battery systems from industry leading lithium-ion solutions. Since 2006, the company moved from a traditional battery producer to become one of the first developers, manufacturers and provided of lithium-ion cells in Europe. Leclanché’s BESS are optimized for various applications, in particular for the integration of renewable energy, diesel fuel reduction, electricity grid-connected ancillary services, peak power shaving for heavy industries, as well as for heavy duty transportation in buses, trams, trains or maritime vessels. Leclanché products are characterized by a very high cycle stability (both for cells with titanate and graphite anodes) and industry-leading long service life resulting into reduced total cost of ownership. With its patented separator technology, which is a core element of lithium-ion batteries, Leclanché is able to make cells with very good safety characteristics, under a highly automated production process. Leclanché operates a fully automated plant for the production of large format lithium-ion cells at an annual maximum capacity of up to one million cells and is capable of running multiple chemistries through production for different cell characteristics. In addition, Leclanché offers a number of specialized battery systems through its Portable Business Unit, such as customer-specific energy storage systems for defence and medical applications. Leclanché also distributes primary and secondary batteries and accessories of other producers.

Leclanché is listed on the Swiss stock exchange. SIX Swiss Exchange: ticker symbol LECN | ISIN CH 011 030 311 9

Disclaimer

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to Leclanché's business, which can be identified by terminology such as "strategic", "proposes", "to introduce", "will", "planned", "expected", "commitment", "expects", "set", "preparing", "plans", "estimates", "aims", "would", "potential", "awaiting", "estimated", "proposal", or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding the ramp up of Leclanché's production capacity, potential applications for existing products, or regarding potential future revenues from any such products, or potential future sales or earnings of Leclanché or any of its business units.

You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of Leclanché regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that Leclanché's products will achieve any particular revenue levels. Nor can there be any guarantee that Leclanché, or any of the business units, will achieve any particular financial results.

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