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Batteries: the battle for “liquid batteries” begins. The future of large energy storage is developing in the East

There is a type of battery that is rarely talked about, but which proves to be the most suitable for large storage plants linked to intermittent production with renewable sources: liquidity cathode anode batteries, or "Flow batteries" or "Batteries. redox flow ".

These are batteries in which the cathode and anode are liquid and stored not close to the electrolytes, i.e. the place where they react, through a membrane, to create the flow of electrons that generates energy. The fact of being liquid therefore allows the anode and cathode to flow in the necessary quantities when needed, hence the term “Flow batteries” or flow batteries.

These are obviously not suitable batteries for cars or domestic systems because they require separate rooms for the storage of the anode and cathode, as well as pumps for the generation of flows, but they have the advantage of duration and the fact that no metals are needed. rare like lithium. These are technologies more similar to fuel cells, which use non-combustion chemical reactions. The great advantage of this storage system is that the relative cost is only a few tenths of a cent per KW / h, much less than alternative solutions that cost a few Euro cents per KW / h.

Two large Far Eastern companies are scrambling to control this sector. China's Dalian Rongke Power is competing with Japan's Sumitomo Electric Industries to grab the demand for this type of battery essential to the renewables sector.

An energy project in the city of Dalian recently went into operation using a redox flow battery storage system developed by Rongke. The system has a capacity of 400 megawatt hours to contain the energy produced by wind turbines and other sources. The investment in the project was 1.9 billion yuan ($ 281 million). In August alone, Rongke delivered a total of around 560 MWh of redox flow batteries. Another 400 MWh of storage will be added to the Dalian project. The power of a small power plant.

The competitor is also oriental, but Japanese. Sumitomo Electric Industries was the first to market redox flow batteries in 2001 and does not intend to hand over to a Chinese rival. In March, the company delivered a 51 MWh unit, the largest in Japan, to Hokkaido Electric Power.

The total capacity of Sumitomo Electric's portfolio reached 159 MWh, including units delivered to the United States, Taiwan and Morocco.

A battle that currently sees a greater potential capacity of Rongke, but Sumitomo will not stand by and watch, as European companies do, demonstrating the uselessness of the forced “Green” investments wanted by the commission.


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The article Batteries: the battle for “liquid batteries” begins. The future of large energy accumulation is developing in the East comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/batterie-parte-la-battaglia-per-le-batterie-liquide-il-futuro-della-grande-accumulazione-energetica-sta-sviluppandosi-a-oriente/ on Thu, 11 Aug 2022 10:17:30 +0000.