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Yet another twist in the tangled web of red state – blue state relations popped up on February 4, when two companies based in Georgia and Massachusetts announced a new venture called Storion Energy, aimed at shepherding more renewable energy into the nation’s grid. The two firms will provide vanadium flow battery manufacturers in the US with a cost-cutting lease model for the electrolyte they need. Regardless of home state politics, that’s a big thumb in the eye of the fossil-friendly Trump administration.
The Flow Battery Difference
It’s too bad that a red-blue alliance has yet to surface in Congress, where Republican representatives could exercise their Constitutional authority to check or at least balance the chaos fostered by the Trump administration. After all, they hold the majority in both houses. They control the agenda. If there are no checks or balances against the abuse of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that’s on them.
Had enough? If you have any Republican representatives in Congress, tell them. In the meantime, the business of the energy transition continues, and flow batteries are becoming a big part of that business. Improvements in the domestic flow battery field will help accelerate wind and solar development in the US, by offering longer-lasting energy storage at a lower cost than lithium-ion technology.
Flow batteries generate electricity when two liquid formulas exchange ions between a membrane. The transition metal vanadium (not vibranium!) is preferred as the active ingredient, partly because it can be used in both liquids.
Compared to their lithium-ion counterparts, flow batteries have been slow to catch on. Developing an efficient, inexpensive membrane has been one of the sticking points. Beyond that, though, flow batteries mainly consist of tanks, pumps, and other hardware. They can be scaled up or down by altering the size of the the tanks. They can sit idle for long periods of time without losing capacity, and they don’t require the intensive battery management systems typical of Li-ion arrays.
Most importantly, a flow battery discharges far longer than other energy storage systems. Typical Li-ion arrays have a capacity of 4-6 hours, making them suitable for handling short-term grid tasks or emergencies. In contrast, the US Department of Energy has identified 10 hours or more as the duration needed to improve resilience and increase the proportion of wind and solar on the national grid.
A Cost-Cutting Solution For The Flow Battery Supply Chain
One partner in the new Storion flow battery venture is Stryten Critical E-Storage, an affiliate of the Georgia firm Stryten Energy. The other partner is Largo Clean Energy, a subsidiary of Massachusetts-based Largo. Through Storion, both firms are aimed squarely at cutting the up-front cost of manufacturing a flow battery.
Instead of marketing its vanadium electrolyte on a one-off basis, Storion plans to offer the electrolyte under a lease model, enabling flow battery manufacturers to cut their up-front costs down to the bone.
“Storion Energy’s mission is to remove the barriers to entry for battery manufacturers by enabling them to domestically source price-competitive components for flow batteries, including vanadium electrolyte,” Storion explained in a press statement earlier this week.
Storion cites its exclusive access to another firm, Largo Physical Vanadium Corp., as the foundation of its lease model.
“Storion combines access to high-quality vanadium supply from the only operating Western Hemisphere vanadium mine with domestic electrolyte production to establish a fully integrated vertical supply chain for utility-scale vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) used in long-duration energy storage (LDES) applications,” the company elaborates.
A Flow Battery Is Coming For Your Fossil Fuels
While the Trump administration has swiftly gone about the business of destroying public resources, up to and including the Constitution itself, the sustainability goals established during the Biden administration are still a motivating force. Storion, for example, notes that the Energy Department set a cost-cutting goal of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2030 for long duration energy storage, and that is their target.
“Storion Energy’s competitive VRFB [Vanadium Redox Flow Battery] pricing model is expected to challenge the dominance of lithium for utility-scale deployments, increase the adoption of this technology and secure leadership for the U.S. in this key energy infrastructure application,” emphasized Largo Clean Energy President Francesco D’Alessio.
Aside from bumping Li-ion technology out of the utility-scale energy storage market, Storion also notes that vanadium flow batteries can operate for 20 years or more without losing capacity. That’s about the same lifespan as a typical wind farm or solar array. If the site is turned over to another use after that time, the vanadium electrolyte can be recycled.
Sustainability Is Here To Stay
As for how much longer the US public can put up with the beyond-extreme actions of the Trump administration, that’s not up to the public. The US electorate put Trump in office, whether they voted for him, voted for a third party, or did not to vote at all. Un-election is not a thing. Impeachment and removal from office is a thing. However, that’s off the table until the Republican majority decides to go there. If past is prelude, they most definitely will not.
Regardless, the smart money is still banking on sustainability. Bloomberg opinion editor Mark Gongloff described the action in a column on February 5th. Noting that the energy transition is under attack from Trump and other far-right climate deniers, Gongloff asserted that “the transition is inevitable, oblivious to such opinions, and it stands to make its financiers a lot of money.”
Citing a new BNEF report, Gongloff noted that the global banking sector is still up to its neck in fossil energy financing. However, green finance is racing ahead. “The $2.1 trillion invested in clean tech last year was nearly double the $1.15 trillion going to fossil-fuel supply,” he observed.
“The gap between the two has yawned from just $169 billion in 2020 to $931 billion last year. Not even Trump’s zeal for oil, gas and ‘clean coal’ can stop that trend,” Gongloff added.
“As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Liam Denning has written, the markets decide how much oil and gas gets pumped, not presidents,” he added again for good measure. He also noted that “the US and its banks are still far and away the world leaders in green debt and equity issuance,” even though China accounts for an outsized share of investing.
That’s good news for the flow battery business as well. With all that money flowing around, BNEF calculated a 76% year-over-year increase in global battery storage capacity for 2024.
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Image (cropped): Trump or no Trump, a new vanadium redox flow battery lease model will cut the cost of long duration, utility-scale wind and solar energy storage (courtesy of US DOE).
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