Mining Weekly11 Sep 2020 14:30
Swiss Resource Capital highlights that decentralised storage facilities will dominate the market in the future, with a keen eye on vanadium redox batteries.
According to its report, this type of battery is better suited to use in the renewable-energy sector, as opposed to the use of lithium, cobalt and nickel in lithium-ion batteries or accumulators in smaller applications such as automotive or personal electronic products.
The “virtually explosive” expansion of energy generation from wind farms and solar photovoltaic has, however, presented a significant challenge for power grids, as renewable-energy sources often produce extreme fluctuations in power generation, depending on the availability of sun and wind.
Swiss Resource Capital says this results in an oversupply of electricity in the short term, with up to 20% of the yearly wind power yield being lost as a result of turbines having to be shut down at short notice, owing to grid overload.
This can be remedied by storage facili- ties that initially absorb the surplus energy and later release it back into the grid when needed.
Swiss Resource Capital posits that the vanadium redox accumulator, in particular, plays a decisive role in this regard, as it has a higher operational reliability than the lithium-ion battery.
The vanadium redox accumulator is a so-called flux accumulator, which uses vanadium compounds in aqueous solutions in both electrolytes. Vanadium redox flow cells offer a very high degree of operational safety, compared with other storage systems, as the electrolyte is neither flammable nor explosive, owing to its high water content.
The commercial batteries currently avail- able are used exclusively for stationary applications, such as regenerative energy sources to cover peak loads and load balancing, as well as for uninterruptible power supplies.
By the end of 2019, Swiss Resource Capital reports that more than 80 large vanadium redox flow batteries were in operation worldwide.
The largest vanadium redox flow battery, with a capacity of 2 MW and 20 MW/h energy
storage capacity, was completed in September 2019 in Baden-Württemberg, in Germany.
The largest battery in the world, still under development, will also be a vanadium redox flow battery, with a capacity of 200 MW and an energy storage capacity of 800 MW/h, in north-east China.
The largest future application area for vanadium redox batteries is decentralised energy storage and smart grid systems requiring a large number of short- and medium-term energy storage devices that can absorb surplus energy and later, when there is no wind or sun, release it back into the grid, according to Swiss Resource Capital.
“Vanadium redox batteries can clearly provide a remedy here by temporarily storing the over-generated energy and releasing it back into the grid only when needed.”
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