Commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage in Europe, described by one analyst as “beginning to take off”, is the “most exciting” segment of the market at the moment, according to BYD’s global service partner.

First developed by NASA, flow batteries are a potential answer to storing solar – and wind – for eight to 10 hours, far beyond what is commonly achieved today with lithium-ion. In the first of a two-part special report, Andy Colthorpe learns what the flow battery industry faces in the fight for commercialisation.

A European consortium is to test the use of long duration storage flow machine technology with a large scale tidal energy project planned for the UK later this year.

What is thought to be the largest operating containerised vanadium redox flow machine system in the UK has been connected to the grid by manufacturer redT energy, with the 1MWh project becoming the first to sign up to a local energy market being set up by British multinational utility Centrica.

Four months after its CEO declared to Energy-Storage.News that hybrid vanadium redox flow-lithium systems would be the “optimal” way to deliver multiple applications for energy storage, redT has delivered equipment to its first such project.

While lithium-ion is rapidly racing ahead to become the “de facto grid storage solution” and is the most popular technology choice by far, vendors of other types of batteries are also targeting the market, with varying degrees of success.

Hybrid systems that combine high power technologies such as lithium-ion and long duration, high energy redox flow energy storage is “where the market will go”, the CEO of a vanadium ‘flow machine’ provider has said.

Energy storage has reached a point of commercial viability in the UK according to the chief executive of redT energy, who said the company had now reached “the right price” for an economic proposition.

UK flow battery provider redT will deliver a 1.08MWh energy storage project to support the distributed energy system in Cornwall, England, and potentially take part in utility Centrica’s developing ‘virtual energy marketplace’.

Vanadium redox flow technology provider redT energy reported a loss of €2.7 million in H1 2016 compared to a profit of €0.1 million in H1 2015, in line with the company’s expectations.