Defense and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin wants to be the first disruptive company of the flow battery era, with the expectation that its first devices will go into series production before the end of this year.

Energy-Storage.news met earlier this year with company VP for business development Dan Norton, who said that Lockheed Martin’s own coordination chemistry flow battery (CCFB) had neared the end of its development and test programme, which had gone “swimmingly and as planned”. The product has been some time in development, originally teased as expected to hit the market before the end of 2018, although this target was always understood to be flexible.

“We begin serial production on our unit number 1 towards the end of the year and we’ll go for full launch in the market some time next year,” Norton said, in an interview taped at this year’s Solar Power International in late September but only cleared for publication approval later.

That in itself is an indication of Lockheed Martin’s focus. The flow batteries are being developed within Lockheed’s Missiles and Fire Control division, and Norton said that as an energy security asset, the technology and market is “the next logical progression” for the company.

While Lockheed has already launched GridStar lithium and seen successful deployments of over 100 units in North America, as the market moves from shorter to longer duration energy storage, Norton said, it identified a further opportunity.

“So we invested in (Sun Catalyx), a technology that’s a spinout of MIT, to create a co-ordinated compound chemistry flow battery, that is human- and environmentally-safe, that is balance-of-plant cost-effective and that is deployable worldwide,” Dan Norton said.

Projects could be ‘multiple megawatts to hundreds of megawatts’
Long-duration flow batteries offer a potential to decouple energy and power, meaning that while they tend to cost more upfront than lithium-ion batteries, they can effectively scale up fairly easily, simply by increasing the capacity of the tanks the electrolyte is pumped through. While the small handful of flow battery companies already out there in the market tend to favour either vanadium or zinc bromine, Lockheed is keeping tight-lipped still on the makeup of the proprietary electrolyte its GridStar Flow products will use.

Australia-headquartered flow battery manufacturer Redflow’s zinc-bromine based devices have been picked by the New Zealand Rural Connectivity Group to help extend mobile coverage and internet connectivity to thousands of homes and businesses in remote areas.

New Zealand’s government created the RCG in 2017 as a critical infrastructure project aiming to extend mobile and wireless broadband coverage out to more than 34,000 rural homes and businesses, add 1,000km of mobile coverage to state highways and build 400 new cell sites in the process. The government is funding the RCG through a Telecommunications Development Levy, as well as a contribution of NZ$75 million (US$48.1 million) from New Zealand’s mobile network operators.

Redflow’s batteries will be paired with solar panels and backed up with a generator for the RCG sites. Redflow said that while its zinc-bromine batteries have been selected, commercial negotiations are now underway to “establish a direct relationship” for the purchase of batteries. The RCG project is aimed for completion by December 2022, while the first deployment of Redflow batteries looks likely to be installed by the end of this year, Redflow said.

“We have closely examined Redflow’s energy storage technology and believe it provides a compelling solution for RCG due to its deep cycling capability, its long life and its environmental benefits over competing technologies,” RCG head of procurement and commercial, Richard Spencer, said.

Energy-Storage.news recently reported on Redflow’s second telecoms sector deal in South Africa, where telecoms towers are being repowered with the company’s ZBM2 battery units. Redflow pointed out in a press release that it has also executed an off-grid project for Vodafone New Zealand, while company managing director and CEO Tim Harris said Redflow and RCG have been working together for about six months to reach this point. The roll-out will include some grid-connected as well as off-grid areas.

Long duration flow battery manufacturer CellCube will bring its large-scale vanadium redox flow systems to the UK, with the country’s Capacity Market firmly in its sights, according to Immersa, which the Canadian energy storage company has signed up to partner with.

UK-based solutions provider Immersa is to offer the vanadium redox flow systems to its customers in the British market. Robert Miles, Immersa’s chief executive, pointed towards a market trend towards longer duration batteries as the two companies announced the strategic partnership.

“We have been active in the UK storage sector for nearly three years and have already seen an enormous change in the application of the technology and the revenues that are derived from them.

“We have designed systems that used multiple generation technology and by installing in combination with these long duration batteries, we have shown that it is both possible and commercially feasible to generate, store and consume power that has been self-produced,” he said.

A significant driver for longer-duration batteries in the UK market has been transmission system operator National Grid’s de-rating factors, applied to battery storage projects that bid for contracts in the Capacity Market.

As administrator of the mechanism, National Grid applies a de-rating factor based on the project’s duration, ranging from 30 minutes to four hours; the maximum expected length of a system stress event.

Batteries capable of discharging for the full four hours stand to receive the highest level of support under the mechanism, a factor which has led many developers – including Anesco – to explore the possibility of adopting longer duration, but higher cost, battery technologies like vanadium flow machines.

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) are a front-runner technology for meeting the growing demand in the energy storage sector, says Bushveld Energy CEO Mikhail Nikomarov.

During a webinar on energy storage this week, he noted that data by US-based multiservice professional firm Navigant shows that VRFB demand is expected to increase to over 18 000 MWh by 2027.

However, keeping market researcher BMI Research’s suggested 25% market share in mind, Nikomarov on Tuesday noted that this could increase to over 27 500 MWh by 2027.

If these forecasts hold true, 82 000 t of vanadium will be needed just for VRFBs, he said. Taking the BMI forecast into account, this could increase to over 96 000 t.

“This is a significant demand, and actually presents us with an upside,” he said.

Nikomarov said VRFBs offered clear advantages, both technically and financially, which “sets it apart in large-scale stationary applications”.

Despite vanadium’s limited share in current markets, the demand for vanadium – which offers future opportunities in consumer and mobile energy storage – remains underwritten by the steel market.

Existing demand from the steel and chemicals markets, Nikomarov said, implies a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for vanadium demand of 2.5% from 2017 to 2027.

The high dependence of VRFB on vanadium may increase this demand CAGR to 8.4%, he added.

Supporting this growth, is the industry’s optimism surrounding VRFBs.

Counting in the battery technology’s favour, he highlighted, was the evolution of energy storage cases that are “actually what a vanadium battery does”, which is longer duration and multiple purposes from one battery; as well a reduction of cost and consolidation.

Nikomarov also pointed out that the technology has Chinese political support, which is leading to greater VRFB deployment in Asia, compared with other regions.

Vanadium redox flow battery maker VRB Energy has begun commissioning a 3MW / 12MWh energy storage system project in Hubei, China, which is expected to help serve as a demonstrator for much larger projects to come.

The project, Hubei Zaoyang Storage Integration Demonstration, is being used to demonstrate the use of storage systems in combination with solar PV. It is being installed in Zaoyang, Hubei Province and is planned to eventually reach 10MW / 40MWh. VRB Energy said yesterday that the demonstration project’s first 250kW / 1MWh battery module has been successfully commissioned.

It could then lead to the development and deployment of a 100MW / 500MWh vanadium energy storage system that would form “the cornerstone of a new smart energy grid” for the region, Energy-Storage.news reported in November 2017 as the demonstration project was awarded. The Hubei project is one of a number of pathfinders being commissioned in China.

The China National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has called for greater investment in flow batteries and set up programmes to develop vast projects in excess of 100MW capacity each. One such project already under way is a 200MW / 800MWh vanadium energy storage project in Dalian Province, by Chinese system manufacturer Rongke Power and UniEnergy Technologies (UET).

VRB Energy is one of a handful of makers of flow batteries, which can use a range of materials including vanadium and zinc bromine as electrolytes to create long duration solutions for storing energy that go beyond the 1-4 hours commonly associated with lithium-ion battery systems. The company was formerly known as Pu Neng in China but has now rebranded under the VRB Energy banner. Hubei Zaoyang Storage Integration Demonstration project customer Hubei Pingfan meanwhile is a mining and minerals company with an interest in vanadium.

The quest to develop better batteries continues in research facilities around the world. The goal is to develop batteries that store more energy and cost less money. But that’s not all. To be commercially successful, they must have a long service life and be environmentally safe. Scientists at Stanford University believe they are close to a battery breakthrough which could meet all of those objectives and give a big boost to the goal of powering the grid with renewable energy.

Flow batteries are considered prime candidates for grid scale energy storage. In a flow battery, two liquids — one having a positive electrical charge and another having a negative electrical charge — are separated by a membrane that allows electrons to pass between both fluids while keeping them physically separate. Flow batteries tend to be larger in size than comparable lithium ion batteries, which makes them problematic for use in vehicles, but space considerations are less important for batteries designed to store electricity for the grid.

Until now, flow batteries have had several limitations that kept them from commercial viability. They had low energy density, required temperatures as high as 400º F to operate, and/or used toxic substances that were dangerous to the environment and cost a lot of money. But a team at Stanford led by William Chueh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, says they have solved one third of the flow battery puzzle.

The team has developed a liquid metal solution made from sodium and potassium — both of which are non-toxic, abundant and inexpensive — that acts at the anode for a flow battery. The best part is, the liquid metal solution is effective at room temperature. Theoretically, this liquid metal has at least 10 times the available energy per gram as other candidates for the negatively charged fluid in a flow battery, according to Science Daily. In the lab, the new anode material is capable of storing twice as much energy as any other flow battery currently available. So far, the new battery has a useful life of several thousand hours.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” says Antonia Baclig, a Ph.D. candidate who is part of the research team, “but this is a new type of flow battery that could affordably enable much higher use of solar and wind power using Earth-abundant materials.” The research report was published on July 18 by the journal Joule.