Vanadium flow battery hopeful says long duration vanadium storage can compete with li-ion on costs

Australian long duration energy storage hopeful VSUN Energy says it can deliver a grid-scale vanadium flow battery with up to eight hours of storage capacity that can compete, on costs, with lithium-ion battery products currently in the market.

In a market announcement on Wednesday, parent company Australian Vanadium Ltd says analysis completed by VSUN Energy finds that a four-hour 100MW vanadium flow battery energy storage system (BESS) can deliver a levelised cost of storage (LCOS) of around $A274/MWh.

AVL says the “Project Lumina” analysis compares the estimated LCOS range for a 4-hour and an 8-hour 100MW vanadium flow BESS with that for a 100 MW, 4-four lithium ion BESS and finds it “competitive,” as the chart below illustrates.

Vanadium flow battery technology offers a number of advantages over the lithium-ion; starting with their ability to provide the sort of 8-12 hour storage so desperately needed on modern renewable grids and closely followed by the sort of longevity afforded by a theoretically unlimited battery cycle life.

“One of the major benefits of VFB BESS, compared to lithium-ion BESS, is their ability to conduct multiple full and partial charge and discharge cycles per day without significant degradation over time,” AVL says.

“That flexibility allows the optimisation of the pricing arbitrage between charge and discharge cycles, as well as increasing the available hours of discharge potential throughout the day.”

Flow batteries are also considered to be more reliable and safer than their li-ion counterparts – including being highly resistant to catching on fire.

On the other hand, lithium-ion batteries tend to be more compact and provide higher energy density than VFB technology. Most importantly, however, li-ion has, so far, been a good deal cheaper, making it hard for other battery chemistries to compete.

AVL says the research is part of the company’s vertically integrated “pit-to-battery” strategy, which aims to to develop a modular, scalable, turnkey, utility-scale flow batteries using its own Australia-mined vanadium oxide resources.

The company says the findings of the analysis have given it the confidence to proceed with phase two of Project Lumina, being the detailed design of a VFB BESS solution.

“Should this satisfy the Company’s gated development process, it would deliver a utility scale energy storage solution for deployment to address Australia’s growing requirement for long duration energy storage for the energy transition,” the company says.

“The need for long duration energy storage in Australia is rapidly growing and the work the team is undertaking with Project Lumina is a key enabler to create a platform for us to deliver competitive long duration battery energy storage solutions,” says AVL CEO Graham Arvidson.

“The scale of the projects VSUN Energy is pursuing aims to provide AVL with the ability to utilise our own manufactured vanadium electrolyte, ultimately unlocking the development pathway and full value of the Australian Vanadium Project.”

AVL says phase 1 of Project Lumina has determined that a 100MW VFB BESS is likely to be the optimal base unit for deployment, but that the companies are working towards a modular technology that is anticipated to ultimately be scaled and deployable on a gigawatt-hour scale.