Flow batteries could fill gaps in the green energy transition
Energy storage is a crucial issue in the transition to renewables.But even with all the new battery projects, the amount of storage is still not enough to fill the gaps in a grid dominated by wind and solar.
Flow batteries and the 12 hours of storage they offer could be perfect to fill those key gaps in the green energy transition.
Flow batteries have been around for half a century, and the first vanadium redox flow battery was invented in Australia at the University of New South Wales in the 1980s.
Now a little known Australian energy storage company called Allegro Energy has developed its own redox flow battery.To explain how they work, co-founder and CEO of Allegro, Professor Thomas Nann, likes to compare them to a car.
"In a car, you’ve got an engine and the tank ... the engine of the car is pretty much responsible for how fast you can go, how fast you can accelerate, and the tank where the fuel is being stored determines how far you can go."
Co-founder and CEO of Allegro, Professor Thomas Nann
In lithium ion batteries this ratio is fixed.You can only get that much “fuel” into the battery.This ratio typically only allows a duration of four hours.
But in redox flow batteries these two metrics are separate, which allows the storage duration to be easily extended without having to change the power.
Whether the technology will work at commercial scale and at competitive costs will soon be determined.Allegro is to trial its first commercial scale module at Eraring.