Details of the first vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) energy storage system purchased for installation by Enel Green Power from Largo Clean Energy have been announced by the former’s parent company in Spain, Endesa.
Spanish utility company Endesa, itself a subsidiary of Italian energy multinational Enel Group, said this week that Enel Green Power Espana is building two solar PV plants on the Balearic Island of Mallorca, one of which will host the VRFB installation.
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The Son Orlandis PV farm in the Mallorcan municipality of Palma will be a 3.34MWp facility. The first phase of the project will see the solar capacity installed, while Phase 2 will consist of the installation of a 1.1MW / 5.5MWh VRFB energy storage system.
In August, Energy-Storage.news reported that Largo Clean Energy, set up as the battery storage arm of primary vanadium producer Largo Resources, had sealed a deal with Enel Green Power Espana. It’s Largo Clean Energy’s first sale so far and the company will supply the VRFB through its own brand, VCHARGE±.
The battery storage will allow solar-generated energy to be used even when the sun is not shining, Endesa said.
Endesa estimated that the first phase of the project will be commissioned during the first half of 2022. The Son Orlandis plant was announced together with the 12.53MWp Son Reus PV project, also in Palma municipality, which will be a standalone solar farm.
The two projects are part of a wider portfolio of four PV plants on the island co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), with a total investment value of around €44 million (US$49.63 million). Two of the four, Biniatria (14.97MWp) and Sa Caseta (21.83MWp), are already in operation.
Largo Resources launched its battery storage subsidiary at the end of 2020 with the aim of becoming a vertically-integrated player in the clean energy space. It bought IP and hired employees of a defunct US flow battery company, VIONX, to develop and produce its VCHARGE± systems.
At a ‘Battery Day’ held by the company in June, Largo said that it expects vanadium sold to be used as electrolyte for energy storage systems can be worth twice as much as its other main off-take industry, steel production.
Largo has vanadium production facilities in Brazil and the company’s strategy for targeting the energy storage market was profiled alongside that of another primary producer, Bushveld Minerals, in a feature article for our quarterly journal PV Tech Power, earlier this year.