Construction has begun on a facility which will make electrolyte for vanadium flow batteries in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, by vertically-integrated vanadium producer Bushveld Minerals.
Andy Colthorpe speaks with energy storage associations from Ireland, Germany, Poland and Spain to hear about their unique situations as well as the opportunities and challenges they share.
Using vanadium for battery electrolytes could be twice as profitable as supplying it for steel production, which is currently the major industrial use for the abundant metal, vanadium producer Largo Resources has said.
Emphasis has been placed once again on the importance of developing domestic battery supply chains for electric vehicles and energy storage by the administration of US President Joe Biden, with the country currently highly dependent on imports.
Nearly 12,000MWh of energy storage could be installed in the US during 2021 and the market will continue growing significantly over the next few years, according to research and analysis group Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
Domestic vehicle-to-grid (V2G) can deliver ancillary services to the UK’s electricity network and earn revenues, but what is thought to be the world’s biggest trial of the technology has found that the costs of associated hardware are still too high for many consumers.
Southern California Edison (SCE), one of California’s three main investor-owned utilities, procured 1,360MW of battery energy storage during last year, according to an annual sustainability report for 2020 just published by parent company Edison International.
A company that pairs available energy capacity with the needs of electric utilities is preparing to put 288MW of flexible power onto the California grid in time for the summer peak in electricity demand that threatens energy security across the state each year.
It is increasingly becoming recognised that energy storage is crucial in helping the UK to meet its targets for reducing emissions and ensuring reliability of the energy system. In this panel discussion from the Energy Storage Summit 2021 held earlier this year, experts and stakeholders discuss what sort of changes might need to happen to make that contribution possible.
