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Slinkyfink - I have been in touch with the author of that article to complain about the very poor coverage that they have given VRFBs and you can be confident that this situation will be very different in future.
1. Pumped Hydro - to call this 'promising' is like saying your grandmother has 'promise'. Nuff said.
2. Stacked blocks - an absolutely nonsense idea, never tried at any scale, very poor energy density and very low power, absolutely destroyed here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIhCuzxNvv0
3. Liquid air - this should really be liquid air and hot rocks because when you compress the air you generate large amounts of heat and if you do not store this in some hot rocks then you are simply back to the sub 35% Carnot efficiencies of heat engines. Even if you do store the heat you always end up with efficiency losses due to irreversibility in any kind of heat engine. Overall it probably ends up at less than 60% of the energy put in being recoverable at the end of the overall compress, liquify gas +heat rocks, store in thermally insulated vessels, boil the gas by bringing into contact with hot rocks, decompress through a turbine to give electricity. As a result it is not a device that you've going to want to be charging-discharging on a daily or bidaily basis, not if you've got higher efficiency alternatives like VRFBs (80% efficient).
4. Underground compressed air - well it doesn't have to be underground, more precisely it is 'storing compressed air wherever you have a naturally occurring freely available large space that can contain millions of cubic metres of air at a few bars pressure without risking breaking'. Because it does not involve a fluid phase change or such extreme changes in temperature the irreversibility losses of 3 are not so bad. But it does not get around the basic problem of 1. that this is not a readily locatable technology.
5. Flow batteries - the only argument for non Vanadium flow batteries is that it does not contain Vanadium, in all other aspects they are only as good as or less good than VRFBs. You will note that apart from the Australian Redflow the manufacturers of non-V flow batteries (ESS, Vizn) are based in the US, which is notoriously unaware that Vanadium is more abundant than common metals such as Zinc, Nickel, Chrome and Copper. This is how we can mine Vanadium in an open pit instead of having to send anyone into much more dangerous underground mines.
Just out of interest here are the 5 listed as the "The 5 Most Promising Long-Duration Storage Technologies Left Standing"
- Pumped hydro: obviously this is a well know option which has been around for a long time as will remain to be. It is reliant on geographical features though, and not something I imagine would be considered outside of a location which supports this.
- Stacked blocks: aims to avoid the limitations described above. Pretty 'far out' setup IMO, but time will tell as to what sort of traction it gets.
- Liquid air: an interesting one. Don't know too much about them so can't comment on how it competes with VRFB's.
- Underground compressed air: another one which is probably reliant on "geographical features", whether those are man made or pre-existing.
- Flow batteries: won't comment on these as we should all be familiar. Would be interesting to know the pro's and con's of Iron vs Vanadium (beyond what was or might still be a price based one).
I came across this article today which comments favorably on the BMN electrolyte rental model & how it's enabling them to compete against L-ion offerings:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/most-promising-long-duration-storage-technologies-left-standing
At number 5 in the most promising long duration storage list (not listed in order of most promising), they discuss Avalon & RedT with mention of Vanadium rental. Quote below:
"Avalon Batteries, arguably the most successful vanadium flow maker in terms of number of systems deployed, found a way around the materials cost challenge. It created an arrangement for renting vanadium from mining companies, which would like to see a new market for their product. By mass-producing turnkey systems in a factory, Avalon has shipped 160 flow batteries, escaping the dead-end little leagues of hand-built pilots. These systems are not long-duration per se, but they compete with lithium-ion batteries on cycle life in high-throughput applications.
On the strength of that showing, Avalon will soon take over U.K. flow company RedT, which innovated commercially but suffered from chronic stock price declines and looming capital requirements.
That deal brought in new investment and marks an unusually positive development for the sector by showing that flow battery M&A activity can take place outside of the bankruptcy-induced fire sale."
Interesting that if you look back through the footnoted articles a chap called McGregor said in 2017, when contrasting competing Lithium batteries with VRFBs-
"Flow to grow?
Flow batteries store energy in liquid form. McGregor claims the electrolytes in his firm’s machines “never degrade”, making them “infrastructure assets”. He believes that will bring debt finance into the storage market.
“It is very hard to finance a battery. If your battery degrades, you have to throw out 100% of that capital cost. So it is not a long-term asset.”
If , added to that as mentioned in the Avalon article , Los Angeles fire department don't like Lithium large scale in residential districts because of the inherent fire risk, it seems a no brainer that VRFBs will win the day--IF the playing field is level, which it probably will not be.
But I believe merit will win the day and MN is well placed to push BE forward binging BMN more to the fore in the process. Hence I sell not one share.
If we all stand united , if we can ( obviously need dictates some will sell), then I think the company and its share price will soar. Just my view DYOR
KN
"The Statkraft deal and electrolyte financing with Bushveld, he adds, 'to me look very repeatable'."
indeed
And now the article link!
https://theenergyst.com/avalon-founder-flow-storage-can-be-much-cheaper-than-lithium/
Yachty - you might let the guys on the RedT board know about that.
Avalon RedT article
All PR is welcome