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.
Realising the theoretical promise of solar-wind-storage hybrids is far from straightforward, with individual projects likely to vary considerably. Ben Willis examines some of the technical complexities of combining different technologies into a single, profitable entity.
When lithium-ion’s dominance of the energy storage market begins to wane, redox flow batteries are well positioned as a strong competitor, emerging technology market research and business intelligence group IDTechEx has said.
redT has been given a provision notice from Pivot Power to manufacture 2MW/5MWh of vanadium redox flow batteries as part of the Energy Superhub Oxford project, striking up a partnership with vanadium producer Bushveld Minerals to support the project.
Multinational chemicals company BASF has furthered its interest in the energy storage industry, partnering on the development of ‘metal-free’ flow battery electrolytes with German startup JenaBatteries.
Former Governor of New York George Pataki has welcomed the possible siting and construction of a vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) factory in the state.
The proposed merger between flow energy storage companies Avalon Battery and redT continues to progress, with the transaction set to be completed around the end of March 2020.
Flow batteries have so far, failed to live up to the disruptive potential they promise, a new report says, but authors Alex Eller and William Tokash at Navigant Research have identified 12 leading vendors in the nascent field, based on metrics of strategy and execution.
