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.
Update 27 September 2021: Australian Vanadium contacted Energy-Storage.news to say it has selected a contractor to deliver the first stage of its vanadium electrolyte production facility project.
US Vanadium has followed up a recent commitment to ramp up its flow battery electrolyte production with a deal to secure vanadium feed material and the acquisition of a processing plant near its existing facilities in Arkansas.
US Vanadium, which counts high purity electrolyte for flow batteries among its range of vanadium products, has said it will expand its annual electrolyte production capacity to 2.25 million litres a year in response to demand.
Australia’s federal government has committed millions of dollars in grants to companies involved in lithium battery and vanadium redox flow battery value chains, as part of a wider pledge to support resources and critical minerals sectors in the country.
Lack of industrial policy and strategy and vulnerability to supply chain disruption are among the key things holding back the US’ position in global battery manufacturing.
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.
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.
Australian flow battery energy storage company Redflow has entered a “high voltage, high capacity grid-scale future,” unveiling a new system it has created to be deployed at a 2MWh project in California.
Safely managing the use of lithium-ion batteries in energy storage systems (ESS) should be priority number one for the industry. In this exclusive Guest Blog, Johnson Controls’ industry relations fellow Alan Elder, with over four decades of experience in the field of gaseous fire suppression systems and Derek Sandahl, product manager for the company’s engineered fire suppression products, talk about the best ways to achieve prevention of fire incidents stemming from thermal runaway in lithium cells.
