l'Actualité du Solaire

The commercial director of Invinity Energy Systems (the result of the merger between RedT Energy and Avalon Battery) says he has around 40 megawatt flow battery storage projects in the pipeline. They are intended to

solar energy producers who want to store their production.

Invinity's VS3-022 battery has a stated storage capacity of 220 kWh and a maximum continuous output of 76 kW. The annual degradation of storage capacity would be less than 0.5%. The annual degradation in energy efficiency is less than 0.1%, according to the manufacturer. The operating temperature range is between - 5 and + 45 degrees Celsius. This battery has a life span of 25 years and 20,000 cycles.

According to the company, flow batteries are ideally suited for intensive use and of course for use with long-term charging and discharging for more than three hours, for example when coupled with intermittent renewable energies or to provide services to the grid. "They are well suited for use alongside large-scale solar photovoltaic power plants and in commercial and industrial applications".

"Industry analysts estimate that fully installed lithium-ion prices are around $450/kWh for C&I [commercial and industrial] projects and our vanadium redox flux batteries are at the same or lower price on an up-front cost basis" according to the company. Invinity products offer a lower levelized storage cost than lithium-ion alternatives.

"In applications where batteries are used on a daily basis, we are today about 30% below lithium on a levelized basis, with a clear path to 60% below lithium within two to three years," added the sales manager.

The company has 10 MWh of systems installed.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/29/a-redox-flow-battery-for-grid-scale-solar-plus-storage/

PV Magazine of April 29th

Editor's note When reading about the advantages of flow batteries, one may wonder why they are not installed more. They represent only 1% of the world's storage facilities.