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A great summary Endion, thank you.
Yes, very informative, Thankyou.
great summary Endion
6 : Cost / LCOS
This is a tricky topic, as there is no perfect evaluative method for comparing different battery storage technologies. Different reports suggest quite varied numbers for each tech, and most of the data in relation to VRFB is outdated and in short supply. However, is it generally agreed upon that when using a VRFB more than once per day, they are cheaper when using a Levelised Cost of Storage valuation method than li-ion. The Levelised Cost of Storage is a fairly lengthy and complicated equation, however basically what it does is evaluate the cost of a battery over the course of its life, rather than only thinking of the initial Capex.
As a VRFB is capable of 2 cycles per day vs the li-ion of one, then you getting twice the work out of it. This reduces the Cost per Cycle, and makes it more cost effective over the course of its life than li-ion. This is already the case now, and we do not need to wait for anything to change for VRFB to be cheaper than li-ion using this valuation method.
7 : Recyclable and sustainable
As is widely known, the vanadium electrolyte is 100% recyclable at the end of its life. It can be dropped back into another VRFB, or through a simple process of precipitation it can be converted into V2O5, which can then be used for making FeV for use in the rebar industry. This means that the vanadium you put into the market is accumulative. You simply add to it, and create more potential capacity, rather than consuming it on its first use and reducing the supply once more. By comparison, attempts to recycle li-ion batteries are riddled with complications and safety hazards.
8 : More ethical production chains of base metals
Li-ion batteries are dependant upon the production chain of metals such as cobalt, the majority of which is mined by child slaves in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There is a great desire, for obvious reasons, to shift away from reliance upon such metals, so that any ties with these companies are cut off. Vanadium by comparison is mined by professional companies, such as BMN and Largo.
9 : Vanadium more abundant than the metals used in li-ion batteries
Fairly self explanatory. Vanadium is the 22nd most abundant element in the earths crust, and is 11 times more abundant than li-ion. It is also more abundant than cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc and lead. When targeting a far future energy storage market of terrawatt hours, you want to use a mineral that is in clear abundance.
And there you have it. My list of benefits.
3 : Over building capacity / usable capacity
Taking what was said above, if someone wanted to buy a battery with a usable capacity of 2 MWh, they would need to buy a li-ion with a built in capacity of 2.5 MWh, so that it would have a guaranteed usable capacity of 2 MWh (80% of 2.5). You are essentially having to pay for capacity that you will never be able to use. This is not a cost effective strategy, especially when targeting very large scale and expensive applications.
With a VRFB you get what you pay for, and can use 100% of that capacity with every cycle. This makes more economic sense. Why pay for capacity that you cannot use?
4 : Duration.
A li-ion battery is best when used for between 1 - 2 hour applications, possibly up to 4 hour. When it comes to grid services there are a number of services that this is useful for, such as frequency regulation. However when it comes to the heavy duty work of peak shifting, and reducing the scope of the duck curve, then you need batteries capable of working well at durations between 4 - 8 hours. This is where VRFB work most comfortably. The future market for these heavy duty, big scale batteries is likely to be the largest.
5 : Sub-linear cost to capacity relationship
When a li-ion battery is made the power and capacity are baked in from the start, and cannot be changed. This is not the case with a VRFB. The power stacks (the power rating) and the electrolyte volume (capacity) can be scaled independently of each other.
If you start with a 2 MWh battery, and later want to scale up to 4 MWh, you do not need to pay for an entire new 2 MWh battery, you just add double the electrolyte to the existing battery and voila! A 4 MWh battery! If you wanted to do this with li-ion, you would need to manufacture a whole new 2 MWh battery to put alongside the existing one. In this way the costs of increasing the capacity of VRFB goes down per KWh the more you want to increase it by. Whereas the costs of increasing the capacity of a li-ion battery continuously increase.
VRFB vs Li-ion benefits.
Now, bear in mind that I don’t personally believe that this market will be a winner takes all scenario. The market demand is going to be far too large for any one tech to capture every opportunity. Having said this, lets have a look at what benefits VRFB have over Li-ion.
I have 9 points, which will be laid out below.
I also cant be arsed to post these in reverse order so that they read in sequence, you’ll just have to find this first one and then read from there!
1: Safety
The safety of Vanadium has long been known vs Li-ion, and I feel like this point has been covered pretty well in the past here. As a VRFB is made up of mostly water, there is no chance of thermal runaway. It is also not possible to trigger an Arc Flash, which are a serious concern in the UK with 57% of electricians having dealt with them in their career, 25 of which result in fatalities each year. Lithium-ion batteries at grid scale capacity have the same explosive power as a small nuclear bomb. Add in the deadly cloud of hydrofluoric acid and you have a perfect target for a terrorist attack if it is situated in the centre of a city.
2: Cycles / Degredation
VRFB are capable of achieving thousands more cycles per lifetime vs li-ion. The number of cycles per tech varies depending on the source, however according to a report by Hydrowires, Li-ion are capable of 3,500 cycles at 80% depth of discharge (DoD). This means that they can only charge/discharge at 80% of their nameplate capacity with each cycle. VRFB on the other hand are capable of 10,000 cycles at 100% DoD. So if you have a 2 MWh battery, one li-ion and one VRFB, the li-ion will only be able to provide 3,500 cycles at 1.6 MWh, vs the 10,000 cycles at the full 2 MWH a VRFB can achieve.
How Li-ion get around this is by providing what is called a “usable capacity”. They have the capacity that the battery is built to (2 MWh), and the usable capacity that is usually around 80% of that (1.6 MWh). A warranty for a li-ion battery only covers the battery for use within the usable capacity for a certain number of cycles, or for a certain number of years, which ever comes first. This is due to degradation. Solid state batteries like li-ion degrade with each cycle. A li-ion battery needs to keep that 20% of unused capacity to act as a buffer against degradation. The more you use it, the faster it degrades. Hence why it is only warranted for a certain number of cycles.
A VRFB suffers no degradation. The electrolyte you put in at the start is the same that you get out at the end, save for a slight diffusion of water across the membrane between the solutions. This means that there is no reduction in capacity over its life, and the only real reason that a VRFB has a shelf life at all is due to the component parts such as the membranes, pumps, valves etc. A VRFB can be cycled as many times a day as the charge/discharge rate allows. Which has cost implications as we will see later.
Enrico - you could put the BOAC comet in there - two bad incidents, years of careful re-engineering and the whole jet airliner industry fell to the americans.
We are trying to create a sustainable world. And a sustainable world needs sustainable energy.
Perhaps the number one advantage of vrfbs over li-ion is its greener credentials in that it doesnt need to keep being replaced (remanufactured etc) . As I understand it the initial vrfb installation will last upto 30 years and then recycling the vanadium electrolyte to go again back in the same vrfb, that has had its critical components serviced/upgraded, is relatively easy job. Meaning that vrfbs in effect last indefinitely.
Contrast with li-ion which need to be replaced totally after a much shorter working and ever degrading life. We really havent worked out how to cost effectively reclaim the metals from li-ion batteries and I did read some time ago that it was many more times more expensive currently to use recycled metals from these batteries as opposed to newly mined. So far from being green, the li-ion current li-ion lifecycle just uses evermore energy/water and natural resources in its manufacture. From an environmental point of view, it can't be our longterm solution.
it wasn't red all day friday, it was green.
But yes still had that stupid higher UT
Sorry: fire risk NOT a concern and should not be in my list of cautions with air use. Duh!!
And once again we see evidence of Manipulation in my view. Red all day Friday before a totally unexplained sharp recovery back to 13.95....so they can once again open it down on Monday. Artifiially creating the impression it's red all the time.
TB; Pumped water storage is the pumping of water upwards to store potential energy against gravity when electricity is plentiful. It can then be allowed to run down through turbines when energy is unavailable to generate power. Nothing to do with anything mobile. And I think we'd all agree : VRFB s are unlikely to power aircraft. Lower energy density, fire risk and weight and size count against them there. Its GRID SCALE storage that is exciting.
Daisan,
Or a really bad incident. The B737 MAX also had a very strong market presence, and look what happened after two serious accidents.
Shape up you lot. VRFB future is in Grid Storage. This is an industry at early stage but with massive future potential. The clear benefits of VRFBs over Lithium at this level will become very clear to the markets as large projects come on line, as in China.
It’s not lithium v Vanadium v pumped storage v bla bla bla. More like horses for courses .... and there is a very large course laid out for VRFBs... grid storage.
And BMN are positioning themselves to be right at the heart of the new energy revolution. The market is huge and there will be various technologies involved. VRFBs will no doubt take a large share of this market and as a large vertically integrated low cost vanadium platform they stand to benefit at every stage from raw material supply to electrolyte rental and VRFB contracts, and through its partnerships that extends to all major global markets.
Enjoy the ride. Remember 2027 and 2018? I think we may see those kinds if so rise again.
All just my opinion.
Really? This has been done to death on here. Unfortunately despite VRFB's undoubted advantages in long duration, stationary energy storage, Lithium has much greater market presence and awareness which is very difficult to shift without a great deal of time, effort and money.
As an Aerospace Engineer, I needed to put some counterpoints on here regarding Li batteries and VRFB batteries in aircraft.
Li-ion batteries are volatile and hence get banned from being brought onto aircraft. This started with the incidents on the new 787's a few years back. VRFB is not as volatile, however I can't see them being used as storage on aircraft due to their inferior energy-volume ratio. The future of passenger air travel (minus urban air mobility) is not electric but will be hybrid/ultra-high efficiency turbofans/propfans.
I'm not sure what 'pumped water storage' is unless this means inlet water injection? This is where water is added to the intake and (due to some pretty complex thermodynamics) increases the propulsive efficienicy of the engine. But this isn't used due to the weight margins (water is very heavy)
Still a keen holder of BMN, but I can't see vanadium batteries being a thing powering propulsive systems on aircraft.
And in fact the pumped hydro systems can only be built in very limited locations. This means that the battery storage is not where you would ideally want or need it. One of the benefits of using battery storage is that you can store the energy closer to where it will be used, easing what is called congestion on the grid. Congestion occurs when too much energy is trying to flow down the wires to meet demand. Pumped Hydro will not help with this, in fact it will make it worse. You have to send the energy on a round trip, out of your way, to where it is sited and back again, loosing a few % of energy due to heat loss in transmission. All of these costs are generally handed over to the consumer.
What about Atlantis:-)
Yes, number 1 you cannot site a pumped hydro plant in the centre of a city.
Do you have a list of the benefits of VRFB versus Snowy 2.0? The Australians are going for pumped hydro on a large scale.
Do you want the long or the short list of what benefits VRFB have over lithium ion calamari?
Whats the point RD? You **** off everyone from the bmn board on avct? Just fancy coming over to antagonise? Mate thats so transparent.
Sorry forgot the link.
https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=23054
Fact Sheet – Lithium Batteries in Baggage
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For Immediate Release
February 4, 2020
Contact: Tammy L. Jones
Phone: 202-267-3883
Lithium batteries, which power everyday devices, can catch fire if damaged or if battery terminals are short-circuited.
Devices containing lithium metal batteries or lithium ion batteries, including – but not limited to – smartphones, tablets, cameras and laptops, should be kept in carry-on baggage. If these devices are packed in checked baggage, they should be turned completely off, protected from accidental activation and packed so they are protected from damage.
Spare (uninstalled) lithium metal batteries and lithium ion batteries, electronic cigarettes and vaping devices are prohibited in checked baggage. They must be carried with the passenger in carry-on baggage. Smoke and fire incidents involving lithium batteries can be mitigated by the cabin crew and passengers inside the aircraft cabin.
If carry-on baggage is checked at the gate or planeside, spare lithium batteries, electronic cigarettes, and vaping devices must be removed from the baggage and kept with the passenger in the aircraft cabin. Even in carry-on baggage, these items should be protected from damage, accidental activation and short circuits. Battery terminals should be protected by manufacturer’s packaging or covered with tape and placed in separate bags to prevent short circuits.
Damaged, defective or recalled lithium batteries must not be carried in carry-on or checked baggage if they are likely to be a safety concern by overheating or catching on fire.
When in doubt, leave it out.