Flow battery news round-up

CellCube readies ‘gigawatt-sized VRFB pipeline’ for Southern Africa

If flow batteries needed a deal that would focus renewed interest in the technology and put it on the world’s energy storage map, they now have it.

The CEO of vanadium redox flow battery brand CellCube, Alexander Schönfeldt, has welcomed the signing of an agreement, announced on May 17, that will open, he reckons, a “gigawatt-sized pipeline” for his company into energy-starved Southern Africa.

Schönfeldt told Batteries International: “Indeed this is the first gigawatt announcement ever made for flow batteries.”

Under the terms of the deal between CellCube brand owner Enerox and London-listed renewables developer, Kibo Energy, CellCube’s energy storage systems will be deployed in selected “target sectors” of the region as part of a rolling five-year framework agreement.

The deployment will use a ‘proof of concepts’ model, which Schönfeldt says would see CellCube “slide into the growth scenario with a handful of demonstration pilots for the various sectors and usage cases and then scale up”.

“Kibo has shown that it understands the long duration energy storage space and the activity that is needed to unlock value in the nascent long-duration vanadium redox-flow application.”

Telecoms

Financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed, but Kibo has been granted selective exclusive rights for marketing, sales, configuration and delivery within targeted countries that make up the Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose 16 member nations include South Africa.

Kibo says CellCube will be involved in behind-the-meter projects that are expected to include telecoms towers, gated communities, shopping centers, commercial parks and a renewable energy microgrid project. Orders for specific projects are expected to be placed by the end of June 2022.

Kibo says it will draw on its existing project pipeline of up to 21,200 installations, ranging from small scale 40kWh to larger 2,000kWh systems per installation.

The agreement also holds out the option of CellCube setting up a flow batteries assembly operation in the region, with Kibo having first right of refusal for production output.

Kibo CEO Louis Coetzee says the growing SADC, “and particularly energy starved South Africa, makes the case for energy storage more viable”.

According to Schönfeldt, the differences between his firm’s technology and its lithium energy storage counterparts are “manifold”.

In an earlier interview about CellCube’s technology, Schönfeldt said: “The advantages are convincing, and every project in the stationary storage sector, which currently uses lithium batteries, should be re-examined for safety and sustainability.”

Comparison

On cost, Schönfeldt acknowledges that vanadium redox flow batteries are perceived as being more expensive, but says while all alternative battery technologies are directly compared with lithium, overall costs relating to safety, environmental measures and disposal are “rarely taken into account in a direct technology comparison”.

He points out that a vanadium redox flow battery lasts at least “two to three times as long” as a lithium storage system and says the levelized cost of storage offers a better comparison to address costs in the right light.

“This key LCOS figure indicates the costs of the stored kWh over the service life of the storage system. Acquisition costs are thus relativized over the long service life of the storage system and with storage periods and applications of more than four to six hours, the vanadium redox flow battery is already competitive today.”

According to Schönfeldt, based on current cost forecasts, CellCube’s technology could replace lithium in the stationary energy storage sector in the long term.

In addition, he says the technology has exemplary recycling credentials.

CellCube claims that more than 90% of its energy storage system can be recycled, including the electrolyte solution — which the firm says only has to be produced once and is then “remanufactured” for use in a new storage system at the end of the battery’s life.

Water makes up most of this liquid, which is enriched with vanadium sulfate and other elements.

Recycled

As the vanadium electrolyte of a redox flow battery is not used up over the system’s entire service life and does not degrade, so the storage capacity remains the same 20 years after day one of operation, Schönfeldt says.

“The lifecycle of the tank and the secondary safety container, which serves as protection against leaks, is well beyond 20 years,” he says. In terms of safety, Schönfeldt says vanadium redox systems are preferable because they are neither flammable or explosive.

“The high-quality raw materials of our energy cells, the so-called ‘stacks’, are tested by experts and disassembled and recycled depending on their condition,” he says.

“In agreement with our customers, systems are taken back after the end of the service life and can be re-renewed or refurbished on the market.”

In terms of future developments for CellCube, Schönfeldt says the firm’s current focus is on “megawatt-size large-scale batteries” in container form for industrial customers and energy providers.

The company is also working with large corporations on the “gigawatt storage devices of the future, so that extreme amounts of wind and solar power can be optimally transported via the power grid”.

“We are revising our very successful small and commercial storage systems in the kilowatt range and will then be able to offer them in mid-2023 with a new look, better efficiency and at interesting prices.”

CellCube is also looking at projects involving green hydrogen, hybrid (electricity/hydrogen) filling stations and shipping.

CellCube VRFB chosen for US microgrid project

US power grid systems firm G&W Electric is to use CellCube’s vanadium redox flow battery technology to support a microgrid under construction in Illinois, the companies announced on July 14.

CellCube brand owner Enerox said the firms have signed a partnership agreement for the project, which will also see G&W become a “value added reseller” for CellCube energy storage systems.

CellCube’s Release 4 VRFB system will provide more reliable and resilient power during seasonal peak demands, power quality issues and potential outages.

The 2MW/8MWh system will operate at up to 150% of its nominal power “to catch attractive power prices” in regional transmission organization’s PJM market, the partners said.

“The system has been designed to provide the overrated power up to 3MW for nearly two hours and at 100% load for up to four hours.”

The microgrid will integrate rooftop solar, support the battery’s continuous operation, and actively participate in power utility ComEd’s demand response program, by isolating itself from the grid to help reduce peak load demand.

According to the partners, the microgrid will eliminate its energy dependency during times when prices are high and provide more reliable and resilient power during seasonal peak demands and power outages.

Invinity agrees vanadium storage deal with Hyosung Corporation

Invinity Energy Systems said on April 8 it had agreed to forge a partnership with Hyosung Heavy Industries — the power and industrial systems group of the Hyosung Corporation, one of Korea’s largest conglomerates.

The companies signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the partnership, including an exclusive relationship in South Korea, after concluding what Invinity said was a successful test and validation program with HHI.

HHI said it had comprehensively tested a 200kWh energy storage system from Invinity, a company created through the 2020 merger of flow battery providers redT energy and Avalon Battery. The ESS has been in operation since HHI bought it in 2020 and “has now been validated as suitable for addition to Hyosung’s growing portfolio of projects across the world”, HHI said.

HHI is a supplier of heavy electrical equipment and one of the Korean region’s largest energy storage and renewable energy project developers, with around 2GWh of operational projects worldwide.

HHI will become the exclusive representative for Invinity’s VS3 products in Korea, with further nonexclusive rights to sell Invinity’s products in Hyosung’s other global markets.

Under the terms of the companies’ agreement, Hyosung could also manufacture “elements of Invinity’s VS3 products”.

On May 10, Invinity chief commercial officer Matt Harper told the UK’s House of Lords economic affairs committee’s enquiry into energy supply and investment the company was “trying to shift from using virgin material sources that requires digging holes in the ground to using those industrial waste streams”.

Harper said vanadium was more common than copper or nickel and “available everywhere”, but while Invinity had key suppliers, the company was also fo-

China connects first phase of 200MW flow battery to grid

The first phase of a planned 200MW/800MWh vanadium redox flow battery energy storage system has been connected to the grid in China, the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) reported on July 19.

CNESA said the initial 100MW/400MWh system in Dalian achieved grid connection on May 24 after six years of planning, construction and commissioning, at a total investment cost of Rmb1.9 billion ($281 million).

The eventual total cost of the project will be around Rmb3.8 billion.

CNESA said Dalian Rongke Energy Storage Technology Development is providing the VRFB storage systems — using technology developed by the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In a related move, CNESA reported that China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration set out plans on June 7 that allow “new energy storage technologies” to play a greater role in the national electricity market.

The notice issued by the agencies offers financial incentives for “independent power storage sites” to feed power to the grid. cused on extracting vanadium at the lowest cost, which includes taking it from industrial waste – such as that produced by the oil and gas industry. “When you refine heavy oil, you often get a very high percentage of vanadium as one of the wastes of that process.”

Canada fund graphene research in redox flow batteries

On March 18, Calgary University announced that Edward Roberts, a Schulich School of Engineering professor would receive C$307,000 ($230,000) of funding to continue his work on graphene modification to improve electricity grid capacity as part of the ‘Alberta Innovates’ program.

This is part of a C$13 million clean energy investment by the provincial government of Alberta.

Roberts, who is also the associate research head in the university’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, recently discovered that a small change to a battery membrane could have a big impact on redox flow batteries.

Roberts modified the membrane with graphene, a carbon material measuring only one atom thick, improving the battery’s efficiency and power density.

Redflow hails milestone US project

Australian flow battery maker Redflow said on February 28 it had completed a 2MWh zinc-bromine energy storage system in California — its biggest single deployment to date.

Redflow CEO Tim Harris said the California project — for Anaergia’s Rialto Bioenergy Facility — was “a very significant milestone”.