Flow Battery Development - StorEn

[M]

I'm wondering what folk think of this flow battery idea.

Also does it sound sensible to help with the development (through a $500 investment), not so much as a financial investment, but to help with storage advances?

StorEn Technologies - Solar-Charged Batteries Are The Future

Their main site - StorEn

and a Cleantechnica article - StorEn Technology’s Vanadium Flow Battery Prototype Outpacing Expectations

[pdf27]

Flow batteries clearly have a place - unlike conventional designs you can increase storage capacity at relatively low cost (additional electrolyte and tankage rather than the complete battery), although this comes with no increase in maximum discharge power. That means it'll never be any good for high power applications (grid frequency response, e-mobility) but probably makes sense for inter-day storage at grid level if they can keep the electrolyte costs low enough.
So far as investment goes, your call. That level of investment won't make much of a difference to whether they can operate or not, but as a shareholder/investor you might well learn more about the technology than is normally reported in the press (nothing secret, just the sort of commercialisation plans that tell you a lot but don't make good copy so are never reported). Personally I'd spend it on other things, but it isn't unreasonable.

[linesrg]

Good Morning All,

Amended links:-

https://www.startengine.com/storen-technologies-inc/StorEn Technologies - Solar-Charged Batteries Are The Future

http://www.storen.tech

Why does using the URL insert always lose one of the square brackets when you paste the link in place?

Regards

Richard

[M]

Good Morning All,

Amended links:-

https://www.startengine.com/storen-technologies-inc/StorEn Technologies - Solar-Charged Batteries Are The Future

http://www.storen.tech

Why does using the URL insert always lose one of the square brackets when you paste the link in place?

Regards

Richard

Many thanks, I hadn't noticed the error.

[oliver90owner]

Seems good enough for high power applications if the Chinese 200MW facility, being developed, is anything to go by.

From Vanadium corp website:

The most notable vanadium-flow battery is probably a 200 MW system being built on the Dalian peninsula in China, which will serve 7 million residents. Costing $500 million, it’ll be used to peak-shave approximately 8% of Dalian’s expected load by 2020. This battery system will be the world’s largest, and it will single-handedly triple China’s grid-connected battery storage capacity.

[pdf27]

Seems good enough for high power applications if the Chinese 200MW facility, being developed, is anything to go by.

From Vanadium corp website:

The most notable vanadium-flow battery is probably a 200 MW system being built on the Dalian peninsula in China, which will serve 7 million residents. Costing $500 million, it’ll be used to peak-shave approximately 8% of Dalian’s expected load by 2020. This battery system will be the world’s largest, and it will single-handedly triple China’s grid-connected battery storage capacity.

Like anything if you build it big enough you can get the power out of it - because only a fraction of the electrolyte is ever in contact with the anode/cathode, however, the peak charge/discharge rate as a fraction of the total energy stored will be relatively low compared to more standard battery types.

[oliver90owner]

The rate of charge or discharge is chosen at the design stage - it can be as large or small as required.    It can also increased by fitting more pumps and membranes.  Double the membrane area will double the charge/discharge rate.   

Likewise the elecrolyte volume is only limited by the size of the containing vessels - double the volume will result in double the energy storage.

Nothing different, in these respects, than any current battery technology, as far as I can see.  Charge/discharge rates of ‘more standard’ batteries (whatever they might be) will depend to some extent on the internal cell resistance.  Many of these ‘more standard’ cells will be damaged by overcharging or discharging to exhaustion.  This ‘non-standard’ battery seems to be much more, if not totally, resistant to that sort of ‘abuse’

The only failing, so far, with these redox electrolyte batteries seems to be the cost of replacement membranes and, historically, requiring membrane changes far too frequently.  Perhaps this development has improved this aspect of the technology?

[M]

The only failing, so far, with these redox electrolyte batteries seems to be the cost of replacement membranes and, historically, requiring membrane changes far too frequently.  Perhaps this development has improved this aspect of the technology?

That's what I'm wondering, and basically what the developers are claiming as they suggest less maintenance costs. I think $500 is a bit rich for me as a donation to help something that might of course fail. It's an OK investment amount, but I think it's better to look at this as a donation to help push tech advantages, and I'm not feeling nor capable of $500 of generosity.

But ..... if they do get the cost down to 2c/kWh cycle, then that would be interesting, but with flow batts costing a lot initially, and this one having 25kWh (domestic) it might be a bit too big and expensive for me, but certainly something to watch.