The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) supplies most of the world’s cobalt, but exporting semi-finished or finished products rather than raw materials would better help the country capture the value of the metal used in high power lithium-ion batteries.
Long-duration energy storage has a crucial role to play in decarbonising the global energy system sufficiently to avoid catastrophic climate change as long as its value can be unlocked.
A US$57.67 million loan towards the development cost of large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects will be made to South Africa’s public electricity utility Eskom by the African Development Bank.
Vanadium flow batteries are considered a leading light of the push towards technologies that can meet the need for long-duration energy storage. Not least of all by the companies that mine the metal from the ground. Andy Colthorpe learns how two primary vanadium producers increasingly view flow batteries as an exciting opportunity in the energy transition space.
China has once again been ranked top for involvement in the global lithium-ion battery supply chain by BloombergNEF, but for the first time the US has come in second amid a policy rush to support the domestic industry.
Total demand for energy storage between this year and 2030 could be close to 1TWh worldwide, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
Global equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has supplied hybrid energy solutions technology including 7.5MW of battery storage to the microgrid powering a gold mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
