Australian zinc bromide flow battery manufacturer Redflow says its longer duration energy storage technology could be about to have its time in the sun, thanks to two key developments for the company in the US and in its home state of Queensland.
To Queensland, first, where the company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the state-owned network companies Energex and Ergon, to evaluate and assess how Redflow’s flow battery technology can help meet the changing needs of an increasingly renewable-powered grid.
At the company’s half-year results announcement on Tuesday, Redflow said that while the MoU – announced on Monday – was non-binding, it was also an “exciting and important step in the public validation” of its storage technologies.
“We’re very satisfied with the MOU that was announced,” said Redflow CEO and managing director Tim Harris during a results conference call on Tuesday.
“We think that represents an important milestone, not only in terms of our relationship with [Energy Queensland] but also in the validation for other utility providers who we engaged with as well.
“We look forward to exploring projects with them, including community-type batteries, and also large-scale utility systems on the distribution network that can play that kind of arbitrage role.”
Harris says that as Australia’s energy transition starts to gather speed, there is a new recognition that longer duration batteries can work alongside lithium batteries to fill different roles on the grid.
He says that while lithium is the clearly the dominant technology and chemistry that’s most established and implemented across the NEM, it’s not an “either-or” situation.
“Redflow’s solution can complement the characteristics of lithium, which is much more suited to power orientated applications like grid stabilisation,” he told a conference call on Tuesday.
In Queensland, Harris says that based on the Battery Industry Opportunities for Queensland discussion paper recently published by the state government, potential energy storage demand in Queensland could reach up to 14GWh by
2030.
“Redflow’s locally developed solution can deliver the medium to long duration storage for these requirements, and we look forward to working with Energy Queensland and the State Government to support the energy transition required to meet the emission reduction targets,” Harris said in a statement on the MoU on Monday.
For its part, Energy Queensland – the parent company to the two networks – sounds keen to make the partnership work.
“We have taken time to understand Redflow’s solution and capabilities, and believe it has the potential to
be a great complement to lithium-based systems for Queensland’s conditions,” said Energy Queensland executive general manager of engineering, Peter Price.
Harris says he can see evidence of the increasing awareness about the complementary roles that alternative energy storage technologies can provide well beyond Queensland’s borders, too.
In particular, he says there is increasing interest in the ability of flow batteries to perform energy arbitrage, or to “effectively and efficiently shift the energy from when it’s generated during the day to when it’s needed,” which is usually in the evening.
Harris says the major step change that the industry has seen in the last six months has been the “transformational impacts” of the US Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA.
Redflow says the IRA will double battery storage on the grid in the US and has already had the effect of accelerating industry focus on lihtium-ion alternatives and longer duration systems.
The company says it is well placed to ride this wave of momentum in the US, having established a firm base of projects already developed – including the 2MWh battery solution to the Anaergia bioenergy project in California – and a pipeline with a number of multi-MWh deals in advanced stages.
Redflow’s results report notes that the California Anaergia battery has completed more than 12 months in operation as the first commercially proven zinc flow battery deployment at that scale.
Redflow says the US project has attracted a number of visits by end customers, EPC partners, investors and government entities, while also providing the company with key learnings for its large-scale battery designs.
Harris says the company, which posted a half-year revenue of close to $A700,000, has a qualified pipeline of nearly 2.8 gigawatt-hours – a “significant” year-on-year increase.
“We now have over 350 deployments in the field we have delivered over three gigawatt hours of energy through our batteries,” he said.
