While we do acknowledge the challenges faced as a result of COVID-19, we cannot afford to lose sight of the opportunity renewable energy and energy storage solutions, such as the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRFB) present, argues Paul Vollant, Director of Sales and Trading at vanadium supplier Largo Resources.

Energy generation has never been a single technology market and energy storage is no different, says Ed Porter from Invinity Energy Systems.

Transmission and distribution network operator Hokkaido Electric Power has contracted Sumitomo Electric Industries to supply a grid-scale flow battery energy storage system for a wind farm in northern Japan.

While lithium-ion batteries continue to take the dominant share of new installations by some distance, there are a variety of other technologies looking to complement, combine or even compete. Panellists at the Energy Storage Digital Series looked at the questions of which energy storage technologies are the likeliest contenders for that future.

June 2020’s episode of the Solar Media Podcast is now available to listen to, and it’s jam packed with insight and discussion around a flurry of activity in the US and Europe.

From a full week of webinars and panel discussions, there was a huge amount of ground covered. Here are some more of our takeaways and links to some of the news and views we’ve already posted.

Construction looks set to begin this year on a factory building flow batteries, as a joint venture (JV) formed by German tech company Schmid Group and Saudi Arabian investment company Nusaned closed the transaction to seal its partnership.

The Energy Storage Digital Series, an online-only conference and webinar series, produced and hosted by the events division of our publisher Solar Media kicked off yesterday. Here are some highlights and key quotes from opening panel discussion: ‘Predicting the energy storage tech of the future’.

Vanadium redox flow batteries are almost as reliable as diesel generators in providing resiliency, but won’t be competitive against lithium-ion unless cost reductions can be achieved with the scaling up of manufacturing and deployment.

There exist opportunities for flow batteries to target areas of the market lithium-ion “can’t provide in an economically justifiable way,” the chief commercial officer of Invinity Energy Systems has said.