The U.S. Dept. of Energy has announced $17.9 million in funding for four research and development projects to scale American manufacturing of flow battery and long-duration storage systems. DOE also launched a new $9 million effort — the Energy Storage for Social Equity Initiative — to assist as many as 15 underserved and frontline communities leverage energy storage as a means of increasing resilience and lowering energy burdens.
Flow battery design from Primus Power
“We’re moving at lightning speed to harness renewables and access to long duration storage is critical for dispatching this clean energy for use whenever and wherever it’s needed,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “DOE’s investment to boost battery storage technology coupled with our first-ever Energy Storage for Social Equity Initiative will help generate jobs, build more resilient communities and ensure a cleaner, healthier environment for all Americans.”
While shorter duration storage is currently being installed to support today’s level of renewable energy generation, longer duration storage technologies – like flow batteries – are needed as more renewables are deployed on the grid. Cheaper and more efficient storage will make it easier to capture and store renewable clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.
Flow batteries are electrochemical batteries that use externally stored electrolytes, making them less expensive, safer, and more flexible and adaptable. DOE has selected four research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) projects for a total of $17.9 million in federal funding to advance flow-battery technologies. Selected projects will work to improve manufacturing processes for individual flow battery components and integrate those new or improved components into a prototype system with a mid-sized capacity for grid and industrial applications.
This investment is part of DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge and will be critical to achieving the department-wide Long Duration Storage Shot goal of reducing the cost of grid-scale energy storage by 90% within the decade.
- Largo Clean Energy and partners (Wilmington, Massachusetts) will receive $4.19 million to develop and demonstrate highly efficient manufacturing processes for affordable, grid-scale flow batteries.
- TreadStone Technologies. and partners (Princeton, New Jersey) will receive $4.99 million to develop roll-to-roll technology for manufacturing metallic electrodes and bipolar plates, which are essential components of flow batteries.
- OTORO Energy and partners (Broomfield, Colorado) will receive $4.14 million to improve the cost, scalability, and performance of existing flow battery technology through a metal chelate flow battery system.
- Quino Energy and partners (Menlo Park, California) will receive $4.58 million to strengthen the U.S. domestic flow battery manufacturing ecosystem by developing and executing a scalable, cost‐effective, and continuous process for producing aqueous organic flow battery reactants.
DOE also launched the Energy Storage for Social Equity initiative — a $9 million program designed to help communities better assess storage as a solution for increasing energy resilience while maintaining affordability and combating high energy insecurities. Nationally, more than 65% of low-income households face a high energy burden and more than 30% of all households experienced some form of energy insecurity — sometimes even foregoing food, medicine, and comfort in order to pay an energy bill.
Selected communities will gain access to DOE’s technical experts for assistance in conducting energy, economic, and spatial analysis, as well as assistance in developing and deploying locally-tailored energy storage projects.
News item from DOE
“While shorter duration storage is currently being installed to support today’s level of renewable energy generation, longer duration storage technologies – like flow batteries – are needed as more renewables are deployed on the grid. Cheaper and more efficient storage will make it easier to capture and store renewable clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.”
The former ‘principles’ of A123 that went bankrupt in around 2012, some of the company was a “spin off” some assets were sold to a company in China. After that the principles formed another company 24M. The early focus of this new company was redox flow batteries. The problem, there were no good analysis tools to determine where redox flow would be superior to lithium ion energy storage systems. One of the first tasks tackled by the new company was to “create” an analysis program to see how effective redox flow could be made and at what scale one could use this technology. The bottom line, the program invented by 24M points out when one gets to 1GWh of energy storage and above redox flow becomes about $1/watt to implement. This was around 2015 and by now some companies have made ‘some’ progress in the energy density of redox and some entities are ‘claiming’ an energy density right at the old lead/acid energy density. Getting mass manufacture up and running for the cell and appurtenances manufacturing of such large redox flow batteries will be the first and foremost challenge.
The upside of redox flow batteries, one can build a ESS around redox flow and if you want to increase capacity, add more ion tank storage and run the plant at ‘full output’ for longer periods of time. The ions in vanadium redox batteries have monetary worth as elements used in steel manufacturing after the end of life use in the redox plant, so it’s not just use up and throw away with attendant waste costs like a lot of other technology is. One an use O&M schedules to repair, replace and upgrade technologies without taking the plant all the way down and one could run these energy storage devices in perpetuity for many decades.