Invinity Energy Systems has sold 2.2MWh of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) for use in Taiwan.
Taiwan-based industrial equipment wholesaler Bei Ying International Corporation will buy 10 of the Anglo-American flow battery company’s VS3 third-generation systems.
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The Anglo-American flow battery company, listed on the AIM Exchange of the London Stock Exchange and the AQSE Growth Market, announced the sale yesterday.
The VRFBs will be resold to industrial customers in Taiwan (officially the Republic of China), marking Invinity’s entry into the market with the first battery due for delivery in December. Bei Ying is imminently expected to pay a deposit, the flow battery maker said.
The Taiwanese reseller is targeting growing opportunities in energy and electrification including renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) equipment and infrastructure.
It is anticipated that the systems will be sold to industrial users for renewable energy and electric mobility integration applications, although the first system sold will be installed at an industrial technology research institute.
“The island is ideally positioned to take advantage of renewable power, made dispatchable by energy storage solutions, in pursuit of ambitious climate targets,” Invinity Energy Systems chief commercial officer Matt Harper said.
Taiwan’s government has set goals of 27GW of renewable energy generation by 2025 and 45GW by 2030 as it pursues its longer-term goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
At the same time the island is home to a lot of industry, including high-tech manufacturing, which requires good quality power.
That will likely require a significant amount of energy storage alongside renewable generators and new grid infrastructure or upgrades, with state-owned companies alone planning a spend of about US$32 billion on the technologies between now and 2030.
In May, Nelson Chang, chairman of Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC), a key supplier of cement and other products to mainland China, said that to achieve its goals, Taiwan will need to deploy energy storage equivalent to about 20% of renewable energy output.
That equates to about 5GW of energy storage by 2025 and 9GW by 2030, Chang said in during a presentation of financial results. TCC is the owner of Europe-headquartered battery storage system integrator NHOA, to which it has handed hundreds of megawatts of projects on the island.
The emerging market has to this point been largely driven by state grid company Taipower’s automatic frequency control (AFC) ancillary services tenders. Those have brought other international lithium-ion battery storage players like Fluence, Wärtsilä and Powin into the front-of-the-meter market segment.
Vanadium flow batteries offer long-duration energy storage (LDES) capabilities and can scale up to large energy capacities without requiring additional power electronics and other balance of plant equipment.
They are also perceived to be less risky from a fire safety perspective than lithium-ion and do not experience cell-level degradation even through high throughput usage over many years, with expected lifetimes of about 25 years, after which the most expensive component, vanadium electrolyte, can be recycled.
Invinity has contracted for systems in various global territories with recent project wins in California, US, and Alberta, Canada. In an interview earlier this year, Matt Harper told Energy-Storage.news about the dynamics of growing interest in flow batteries in key regions like the US and the UK and some of the company’s competitive strategies.
Singapore’s VFlow Tech has claimed to be the only vanadium flow battery manufacturer headquartered within the Southeast Asia region, targeting the microgrid, commercial and industrial (C&I) and utility-scale markets.
Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 1st Energy Storage Summit Asia, 11-12 July 2023 in Singapore. The event will help give clarity on this nascent, yet quickly growing market, bringing together a community of credible independent generators, policymakers, banks, funds, off-takers and technology providers. For more information, go to the website.
