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.
An off-grid hybrid energy system at Fekola, a gold mine in Mali, Africa, has gone online incorporating solar PV, battery storage and the site’s existing fossil fuel generators, project partners Baywa R.E and Suntrace have said.
Large-scale Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology looks set to be deployed at a 100MW solar energy power plant in China, two years after a smaller-scale demonstration project was commissioned in the region.
With the US having rejoined the Paris Accord on the climate crisis last week, President Joe Biden has now signed an Executive Order which identifies the importance of mitigating risks in the supply chain for “large capacity batteries”.
Climate-smart principles must steer the global search for the minerals and metals required by the green energy boom to make sure the process remains sustainable, according to the World Bank.
