In April we drove to Oberwintethur in Switzerland to visit family who live there, a 900 km trip in our EV. Ten minutes walk from their apartment is a Cellcube installation with two 50 kW DC rapid EV chargers. These are fed by a Redox flow battery which is charged up by banks of solar panels. There are information boards explaining how it all works but it was interesting to know that the car was being charged in this way. Thanks Dave for another great video.
@@markfryer9880Depart full, Arrive empty -> probably two DC fast charges required, each between 20 and 40 minutes (depending on the charging capacity of the car)
@@markfryer9880 not really. A lot of people do that. If you take your regular breaks every two hours, it doesn't even take that much longer. Just had a trip of 350 km with my EV and didn't even need to charge, but still did just to get some rest and bathroombreak. Got there with almost full range.
long-time watcher here, suggesting a video about public transport as an energy saver. Trains aren't an especially new tech but they are the solution to city commutes.
Where you can convince government to keep up with coverage & maintenance for decades, yes, but the corrupt have a habit of degrading the service for personal gain.
Well, the grid is a dead horse still being flogged left right and center. Once people begin to understand the massive losses in the grid, they will indeed shy off from it. It takes 30,000 Watt in the centralized solar park to produce 10,000 Watt in your home. At your home, it would take 10,500 Watt to produce 10,000 watt. So put up your own solar power or wind power locally. That works.
@@davidsvarrer8942Yeah? You do know that a full third of the nation rents, right? Try convincing your landlord to spend money they aren't forced to in this economic climate, even if it adds to their property value. Even if they did they would then put the rent up, knowing you are saving on your power bill, and you wouldn't be able to afford to live there anymore! We need govt subsides to entice landlords to put up PV and install electric hot water and cooking systems where they are on gas. Or regulation that forces them to as the cost of entry, if they want to play the real estate game.
Ehhh problem is the vanadium in almost all flow batteries, like Lithium it's not an issue of abundance it's an issue of processing it into the from you need. I think thermal batteries are a much more promising development, not for grid operation although there are applications for that that make some sense, for example if we can get nuclear reactors which output 500C+ heat you would be able to use thermal batteries to store the heat of the reactor for later use, which means you should be able to run the reactor at near 100% 24/7, but I digress, the near term thing they can do is replace fossil fuels for process heat using the excess from renewable which first makes it cheaper, but also insulates the user from the volatility of fossil fuel pricing. They are damn cheap to install and reduce operating costs and industry makes up ~50% of our carbon foot print, with ~50% of that being for process heat and we already have thermal batteries that can deliver 1500C temps which is enough to take care of over 90% of process heat so just this could reduce our carbon footprint by 22.5% and it's already economically viable and will accelerate the adoption of renewables as there is a demand for the intermittent energy they can provide. Getting back to the digression, reason being is you need super critical steam to make steam turbines efficient and you need 374C steam to get super critical steam and if you want to store energy you need significantly higher temp than that 500C would make it worthwhile, but it basically means you need to wait for molten salt fuelled reactors, as we can't run solid fueled reactors that hot while maintaining safety and a 50 year operation of the plant, so it's likely not useful even in the mid term. But in the long term it could mean that a plant can run nominally at 33% maximum output normally and then ramp upto 100% by using the thermal batteries in a 30 minute window many times a day if needed and as said you can run the actual reactor at near 100% load 24/7 because when it's not generating electricity it can be dumping heat into the thermal battery.
Yes but I wish he would do or link some hands-on demonstrations of the technologies in action, for example charging and discharging a cell and measuring its storage capacity as a primary source. Or maybe visit one of the installation sites and show the power meter or energy bill of the grid battery to show that the batteries are indeed performing as he describes in the video.
@@samsawesomeminecraft Your apparent questioning of the products performance, to the point your expect a demonstration, appears to be odd indeed. Are you trying to suggest that purchasers of these batteries are wilfully outlaying significant money for a product that doesn't work as specificed. Are you suggesting that no due dilligence has been undertaken? Are you suggesting that the product, being part of public electrical supply infrastructure, has not gone through rigourous compliance and performance testing in the countries that it is available in? Do you have any idea of what it takes to qualify and get authorisation for equipment and products to be connected to public utility infrastructure?
6:10 The Sheffield paper is Open Access, not Open Source. They are not the same thing, and you should avoid confusing them. Open source means it has a licence that allows copying, modifying, and reproducing. Open Access just means that you can read it without a publisher's fee.
As someone working in the electroplating industry, this is very interesting technology. The use of zinc as the carrier metal I find quite exciting due to its ubiquity, low cost, safety and wide availability. Using these for home storage and grid storage would free up the other energy dense technologies for transport uses.
It is worth pointing out some differences between the Vanadium flow batteries (VFB) and the Redflow Zinc Bromine Flow Batteries (ZBFB). The VFB work by changing just the oxidation state of Vanadium in the electrolyte while the ZBFB work as a reversible electroplating process where the electrolyte gets depleted of Zinc which is plated on an electrode. The capcity of the VFB is limited by the size of the tanks of electrolyte, while the ZBFB capacity is limited by both the tank size and the electrode area for plating. Another difference I believe is that Vanadium is relatively rare and so more expensive than Zinc, where we see galvanising, i.e. Zinc plating, everywhere. I am sure they both have an exciting future is stationary battery storage.
There was an argument for second life use of lithium tech. Once it is too degraded for auto use, it still has a lot of life for stationary use. However this is going to devalue that second life by a lot if these work out making the old Li batteries affordable for off grid in their second life. Hopefully that will buy us time to make reclaiming the components more affordable to decommission them when useless otherwise. We do not need another landfill waste item. The worst part is that if the second life is less profitable the first life will have to suck up the cost.
@@swecreations Na look promising since they can also be used for mobile power, and shippable when fully charged too. China has Na-ion vehicles on the road now, but Ellen Musk made substantial investment in lithium, so we will not be seeing competition in the West (owned by Ellen Musk) for a while. Defensive Capitalism.
@@onebylandtwoifbysearunifby5475 Don't know why you care so much about Elon Musk, his company is only one of the manufacturers that are making EVs, and only stands for a minority of all EVs made every year, as well as a minority of all battery development, in fact they do very little when it comes to that.
@@swecreations It's market dominant. Even the EV charging networks NOT belonging to TESLA Motors will be using their plugs, instead of a universal plug. It would be nice if Ellen Musk didn't have a stranglehold-level influence on EV technology adaption in much of the world... But that's not the political reality. Money follows power. Look how many companies have bought and destroyed BETTER competing technologies. It's just the reality of Defensive Capitalism. We won't be moving off lithium as long as Ellen has his thumb on the scale; at least not in good pace. It's just how things work, as history shows us.
As someone who was born and bred In Brisbane, I am quite proud to see a local company doing so well. After being destroyed by successive governments over the last 20-30 years, I have great hope that Australia’s manufacturing industry can re-emerge. It seems this will be off the back of renewable technologies. This is a win win. Australia is blessed with a plethora of natural resources. It’s about time we put it to good use instead of exporting the raw materials and then buying them back in the form of manufactured goods.
So few politicians can understand what is coming. They just can’t grasp what is coming and what is just a fantasy. It happens all the time in all parts of life. Be it technical things or immigration or covid it’s just over there brain capacities, but fortunately the market often helps them in the right direction when everything is obvious after losing a lot of money and time. Better late then never.
Careful! Intelligent idea's like that will get banned by the politicians if they get wind of it. How will they and their globalist handlers keep us under control if we have safe jobs and reliable income?
I think your hope may be misplaced, theres a bunch of reasons we manufacture almost nothing here from workers rights, council permits and planning, wages etc. If the company succeeds there is a very strong probability they will offshore manufacturing, and I think this would be preferable anyway, it will enable them to be cheaper. Thailand is nice and close, that's where I would go if I was them for this product.
@@peteroffpist1621literally half of our politicians have been fighting to do this kind of stuff for decades, it’s the liberal party and their donors that have kept the labor party out of power for the last 15 years
Agreed and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good to have options, bad in that none really stick out as being superior. We cannot have meaningful change on only marginally better options
Really? 30kw is the electric engine required to run an oar hauler, it needs this mobile, always on because a mine cost 4 billion and the interest on this can be measured in $/hr. Only diesel or nuclear can provide this. All other techs seems like feel good solutions considering any metal we use in cars or storage. I am an optimist thing can get worse.
@@johnschneider931 With the amount of waste and inefficiency the world has gotten used to, you'll need all the nuclear and oil you can get... and then it will be over.
I've been watching this channel for a few years. I recall watching when these systems were only a dream and the tech was untested. It is amazing how much things have changed and how quickly. I know we all think it's a little too late for the climate, but there are a lot of people on this band wagon trying to save the Earth. Thank God! A big thanks to Just Have A Think for keeping us all informed! I started an English language channel and know how much work goes into this, with just one person, when you get started. 😅😊
One of the best parts of this is that it is being used to add electrical systems to remote areas that never had power keeping them from going to coal or other systems we have used to mess things up. Cut off the pollution before it starts.
Combined with solar power, flow batteries offer an alternative to diesel generators in the far north. Gather more power during the long summer days and store it for the long winter nights.
To get the LCOE of $0.22 (kind of high compared to fossil fuels), I believe the batteries need to be discharged frequently. In a winter storage scenario, they’re being discharged once per year. I don’t foresee that being viable.
@@autohmaedepends how far north we're talking. Beyond the polar circle, no amount of solar capacity is going to help. Then again, up there, wind and water might be better to begin with.
@@richardmetzler7909 I just meant in general, buying more solar is cheaper than batteries to get through winter time. Obviously in the really white north, you can't do that with solar, wind probably works much better yes and whole year round.
RedFlow's Zinc Bromine Batteries are manufactured here in Thailand in a “Free Port” designed for exports. Once they enter Thailand proper they are considered as imports and are subject to taxes. In 2018 the reseller here quoted me US$16,000 for a 10kWh ZBM2. I ended up paying US$2,000 for equivalent sized LFP CATL cell batteries that I imported from China.
This has to be one of the best channels on UA-cam right…so what’s with the low subs!? Anyone that watches and enjoys/appreciates the quality has to spread the word. Let’s get this guy and his team up to 1m subs ASAP!
Nice one. Good topic and my home town of Brisbane gets a mention! I don't have any suggestions for improvement. The list of industrial installations is encouraging. In my day-job I have participated in linking flow batteries to strategic mine planning (along with the renewables part); this move to load-shifting energy to 24 hour operations such as mine process plants is a fascinating engineering challenge and well worth keeping in your topic list.
Informative? Idiot never said the #1 or #2 reason this will NEVER happen. #1, its efficiency SUCKS ass and #2, there is not enough Vanadium in this world to make this work for even a single small nation let alone the WORLD
@Ronaldo-ue5if Wenn die Gerechtigkeit untergeht, so hat es keinen Wert mehr, dass Menschen leben auf Erden. Es ist nur eine Religion, aber es kann vielerlei Arten des Glaubens geben. Verbindet man Religion nicht mit Moralität, so wird Religion nur zur Gunstbewerbung. (Zitat Immanuel Kant)
I, for one, am delighted to see this technology gaining ground. I remember seeing material from one of the Aussie companies in the field when I was an analyst the NZ Ministry for the Environment, back in 96 or so. At nearly 30 years remove I wouldn't swear to this but I think they were trying highly concentrated solutions of potassium permanganate at the time.
@@CraftyF0XHaving continued with burning fossil fuels for decades longer than climate scientists said we should is definitely causing chaos. The climate chaos will get much worse the longer we continue burning f.fuels (and cutting forests down). We need to end fossil fuel subsidies & divert to energy transition. We have the technology.
Yea right. Let us know when you find a Gigaton of Vanadium or Platinum to make this stuff work. This has been known for decades... Just idiots like you and "just have a think" finally cottoned to Physics and Chemistry think it is the shit...
A friendly challenge. What is the point of covering potential technological solutions needed to transition away from carbon-based energy without 1.) quantifying the carbon footprint of the implementation and maintenance of a new tech (or existing tech as in this video), 2.) understanding the capacity of the supply lines needed to adopt new tech (i.e., feasibility) and 3.) projecting how they would fit in to a wider transition strategy? It's all magic thinking until these techs get properly scoped out.
I've followed Redox, Redflow and Ambri(liquid metal) for years. What is a curiosity to me is the incredibly slow uptake these technologies have experienced. We need to decarbonize, and yet the various grid operators are so conservative that these technologies need a decade just to see the light of day it seems.
Because power grid like roads and other major at scale infrastructure involves very long planning, rollout and cost recovery periods. It could be faster but it would cost exponentially more to replace major grid designs and components every 5 years.
Also, cost - flow batteries are expensive. Which is surprising really given they don't use expensive materials such as lithium. I suspect going forward they may also struggle to compete with Sodoum Iron
@@dancoffey4293 True. Every time I've watched a newer technology come out in hopes of displacing the incumbent, people tend to forget that the incumbent isn't standing still. Unless the technology is at a demonstrated maximum efficiency, it is likely to continue improving. Unless it is quite mature, there will remain significant gains. Lithium (or sodium) chemistries are nowhere near mature
We are looking at home battery backups. I work from home over half the time now. It is amazing at how much more productive working from home is, but our power provider is not the best and we have an unusual number of power issues from complete blackouts to pulses (power on, off, on, off.. very quickly) to brownouts of various degrees. So, I must have reliable power for IT and for Internet service connectivity that may have to last for days. The city I live in is more than 50k people, a corporate world headquarters and home to many tech companies. The power issues are inexcusable, but the money they collect goes to fat pockets, not to infrastructure that is needed.
(and voltage regulation) It might be nice, though, to use less toxic and even less expensive multi valent elements for flow batteries such as manganese, iron or a multitude of others. Of course there are problems to overcome. In Aquious solution, for instance, ferrous iron is far more soluble than Ferric iron so there is a problem of precipitation to overcome. As for the ZnBr flow battery, it includes flowing liquid but is really a reverse electroplating cell unlike other flow batteries. Whatever the case, we really must get away from using Li batteries for static applications. The alternatives are superior in many ways. Longer life, cyclable between 0 and 100% with no damage, safer from a fire point of view and many other characteristics.
Now can you make one that will store enough energy for a single household for one to two weeks without recharging? Size? Cost? Can I stick it safely in a basement?
@@Sekir80 the unit I saw was fairly small at 10KwH. Average home use is 30-50 per day (small to large house). I could easily see a 5 wide by 3 high setup in a basement or extended garage yielding 150 KWH. That would give you 3-5 days without recharging (possibly longer if you conserve energy as in the case of an extended grid down or long lasting inclement weather (assuming solar for recharge)). Even a setup twice the size is not inconceivable for a single home with some planning yielding 6-10 days full use without recharging. Price is of course another matter but it appears that the materials in use are not overly expensive and I’m sure mass manufacturing is possible. All in all it seems like a worthwhile solution to pursue for home use although it may not be feasible for a few years yet as it’s all still in development and a lot of cost reduction would be needed for widespread home use.
Unfortunately VRFBs are not particularly suited for household scale applications. They need a low pH to avoid precipitation of dissolved vanadium and thus rely on sulfuric acid in dangerous concentrations. Vanadium is also toxic. They need very strict operating temperatures (25-40C) again for the solubility issues of vanadium. The possibility of a chemical leak inside a home is almost a non-starter. I remember one company wanting to bury a small VRFB in your yard but that would be a nightmare to maintain and service.
@@primordial_platypus Of course I agree with your assessment especially on size, not too big. Just bigger than a lithium cell design. I wouldn't comment on your "average" electricity usage, because we live very different lives (130kWh for me is one full month). Price, yeah, mass manufacturing could and will bring it down. Did I comment on power here? Important to keep in mind these batteries are pretty weak in that aspect, but even 0.1C for 150kWh battery gives you 15kW, which might be enough for you use case.
I love when non-chemists talk about batteries, sometimes I hear very good simplifications that would otherwise take me hours to explain 🙂 BTW: 8:39 2 electrons on valence is a commonality between the so called transition metals, the metals between the second and the 13th column, with some exceptions. There are other more important things in play here ;-) From all the metals, zinc is the one that really wants to be reduced, to gain electrons for whatever reason, but that depends on the donor of electrons, too.
This is absolutely huge. I opened this video thinking is this yet another battery great at everything but leaving the lab. Instead, this is exactly what I've been hoping to see for years. Commercially viable grid-scale batteries. And they are already produced en masse, with accelerating speed. Many many competitors adding their flavor and price to the tech. Now we can churn out so much more wind and solar when we solve their intermittency problem with these. So glad I clicked on this video.
The RTE is the crux of flow, this includes pumping power. If you go long term without sizing the battery cell bigger, no peak power can be attained relative to the energy volume available, thus long term storage. I was the 1st to suggest combining different types has synergistic energy creation, in my GAIA energy storage thesis. 500% FF burning reduction and 700% GHG elimination with each % of energy storage penetration. Between Lithium high peak energy, is a need that, slow and slow flow, fits nicely in, in-between pumped hydro and evening peak types, like lithium. I have spoken to this subject at IEEE consultants network of san Diego.
It seems like these might just be the answer for EV charging stations where a source of energy can be located nearby. Rather than taxing the grid and all the inverter stuff you could generate, store, and use direct DC current bypassing the stress on current grid tech. I am seeing solar rooftop on shopping malls with massive storage near and charging stations on the lot below. Direct charge in daytime and stored charge at night making them available 24/7/365. I other areas with wind you do likewise but have to have turbines nearby. Point is you lose all the transmission costs and losses plus the conversion costs from/to AC and DC. With proper management you still could back feed the grid with any excess in the early am or even when needed once you have usage trends established.
In the UK, if we could provide half our electricity from wind, then we would need an average continuous sustained output of 15GW. Wind though is intermittent, and on average only generates a third of its maximum output, so we would need a peak generation power of 45GW. Also because there can be extended periods of no wind then extensive battery backup is required. So a one week anti-cyclonic weather stall would leave us needing 2520GWh of battery storage. At a mean estimate of $200 per KWh, this would cost $504 billion.
I think that iron-air batteries are going to win the long-duration storage race but I'm really just happy there is a race and there are so many excellent contenders! Another excellent video!
I think each use-class will have a different "winner" which will be supplanted in due order, hopefully without a repeat of the lead-acid vs Nickel-Iron disgrace. (Nickel-Iron was clearly superior for it's intended use - powering vehicles - but was essentially killed by aggressive marketing & lobbying).
I truly LOVE your channel, and DEVOUR all your videos. THANK YOU for your consummate, highly inspired output of fascinating content - I watch only "no-B.S." youtube videos, and your channel (and just as importantly, your demeanor) are, very sincerely, among my absolute favorite. I hope you keep doing what you love, on and on and on, you diamond in the rough.
@@manoo422 Well, by "B.S.," I obviously mean things like inane drivel... undignified fallaciousness... misguided pretense... you know - any and all the things we collectively refer to, in our society, as _"bullshit"!!_
@@justinklenk When you say 'our society' you mean 'you're echo chamber' You are brainwashed into a belief system by constant MSM propaganda to the point you actually think its true. All the while not noticing you a just part of the flock...in a pen.
Great video: thanks! Just goes to show how individual technologies are all well and good in themselves, but the real game-changers in life come with the melding and incorporation of multiple technologies into multiple types of systems and applied multiple ways to our needs. I'd call this a critical component, delivering a variety of benefits across a multitude of needs. It's just great to hear when something like this hits the market maturity point.
In addition to cost info … I would very much like information on round trip efficiency. Some of these new battery technologies fare relatively poorly … 70% … or 50% … compared to >90% for Li-Ion today. I guess if solar PV is super cheap and limitless (including available land) then low efficiency can win out, but under any other scenario it is a show stopper.
Salgenx has some distinct advantages... First - NO Membrane!! Second - Saltwater solution!! Since these two components are the most expensive parts of a Flow battery... This should drastically lower initial AND on-going cost!
Great Video as Always! I have come to the conclusion that we have the technology to end the use of Fossil Juice. We just lack the will to stop the massive Fossil industry that literally is using energy from the past and has no thought of the future. The technology is there but there is always the "lets live in the past" people around that is the real problem.
The good thing about all these different energy storage tech that's being worked on is that it's going to put a lot of downwards pressure on the price, because it's not going to matter which is the best, but which are the ones that are good enough, in Otherworlds, many of these solutions will work for one thing or another and because so many solutions are being worked on to get to the same goal, it might be difficult for the industry to keep prices high, which is good for consumers as downwards pressure is what we want.
So many people that are negative to wind and solar don’t understand that we need overproduction of electricity and storage is the way to get low prices for electricity and complement our base production of electricity with hydro and nuclear.
The most tragic side of all of this is that while we're replacing fossil fuels, fossil fuel usage and emissions continues to grow. The only dip came during the pandemic.
You misunderstood what was said, long term storage is the final piece needed to start really replacing oil and gas, not specifically this technology. Why? Very simple Building out 1 GW of solar or wind is already cheaper than building a GW of nuclear energy, the problem is, no wind, no power, but if long term storage can get cheap enough that you could build 1 GW wind + enough long term storage to keep delivering power when it's not windy for the same price as nuclear or oil, or just slightly more, well it'll be very easy to invest in. We still have a ways to go before we reach that price point, but that is what is meant in the video.
@@mrbr549 Oh for sure, but we just need to reach slightly above cost parity for efforts to take off. This is one of the hard things about predicting the future of technology. For 10 years it looked like renewable energy was going nowhere fast, then over the course of 2 years we've reached a tipping point and now all of a sudden everyone wants to build out wind power. It would have been a terrible investment 10 years ago, now it's starting to look really good even for a pro nuclear person like myself.
Another advantage for Redflow is that the physical and environmental costs of obtaining Bromide is a lot more effective than mining and processing vanadium.
Just have a think where the vanadium is going to come from for these batteries - Bushveld Minerals listed on the FTSE are commissioning the largest vanadium electrolyte plant outside of China.
This channel is convincing me that, given enough time, we can achieve the technology to maintain a high level of energy consumption. But we do not have enough time. The biosphere is under increasing stress, the climate is showing signs that it may tip over to a more chaotic state at any time and there is quite a lot of warming already baked in. We need these technologies. But we are focusing too much on what comes naturally to our economic system, i.e. research, development and production of new things, and not enough on what is really urgent and utimately our goal: reducing atmospheric CO2 and protecting the environment. We cannot wait for these technologies to maintain our lifestyle. I'm afraid we must reduce energy consumption asap, tighten our belts, pay more taxes and divert resources from wasteful things towards research, mitigation and adaptation.
wow! It's lovely to see a mid-to-long term energy storage solution that is being widely commercialized. Solutions that perform well in high temperatures is going to be vital as well. I wonder at what point we'll start burying Li+ batteries just to keep them cool
The biggest problem with seasonal storage is that you basically have just one cycle per year and thus only make money once a year. A peaker plant (-battery) can earn money once (or even twice) a day! Not to mention frequency stabilization. ==> We'll have to invent a completely new business model for seasonal storage.
Supporting fossil fuel use cost the world $7 trillion last year including $1 t direct subsidies & the rest indirect subsidies including the huge costs of health/environment/climate disaster impacts from fossil fuel burning. In a sane world, we would end the direct f.fuel subsidies & divert them to support the energy transition as a priority...also to ensure developing nations leap-frog f.fuel by helping them install renewables + storage, & fair loss & damage payments to nations impacted heavily by anthropogenic global warming who have not contributed to the cause.
Trillions go to subsidized fossil fuel. We can divert 10 percent to get the ball rolling, it just needs the pencil heads to figure out the profit margin as their houses get blown away by hurricanes and floods. I mean, we turned industry over in a heartbeat during ww2. Climate change is ww3
Thanks Dave. 🙂👍 Zinc Bromide certainly has been around for many years. I saw a version which could be made at home described in a popular science publication from the 1920's. No pumps were involved because of the small scale, but the principle was very similar to these, without the emphasis on recharging the cell. It was being done by topping up the low cost and disposable electrolytes instead. Zn-Br cells are also very likely less toxic, and probably cheaper to produce and run than V-Ion cells. Vanadium is a fairly uncommon metal. Incidentally, what are the cell voltages for both types? That also affects overall battery power density, size and cost. I'm not a chemist, but is there a similar technology which uses Aluminium and another Halide such as Chlorine? Al and Cl are much more abundant than Zn and Br, so if it would work, it might be even more economically viable than the Zn-Br technology.
Excellent video! If I may, I noticed there was a small problem with statics in the sound that might need to be checked. Again, thank excellent work as always!
As with all 'renewables' they are fantastically expensive, very limited in capacity, and dont last long...perfect for large corporations to make max profit from but worthless for energy security..
@@MikeAG333 Clearly you get all your information from MSM propaganda headlines. The are ALL far more expensive but severely limited compared to simple, cheap, secure fossil fuel, exactly why China are doing it...
@Ronaldo-ue5if Stop spamming this crap. There are no gods at all. Allah is a fiction, invented by the human imagination,. as are all other gods. Take your nonsense to a more appropriate corner of the internet.
Although Invinity Energy Systems may be making a mark in the USA their headquarters are in Liverpool Street, England. and they have manufacturing facilities in Bathgate, West Lothian and Vancouver, Canada.
I am glad that we seem to not be putting all our battery eggs in one basket so to speak as I am becoming more skeptical about Li-Ion technology because of the increasing risks posed by them as they become more common in our urban environments. Fire is a terrible event no matter what causes it but when it includes Li-Ion batteries things get much worse very quickly because of how they burn, what toxins are created by it, and how difficult it is for fire fighters to deal with it. The risk of it causing a fire is no more than any other flammable material but putting it out is a whole lot harder than most materials.
Thank you for featuring flow batteries Dave. Been on my radar for a few years since South Africa has such an abundance of Vanadium resources. There is a local company Bushveld Minerals that has been toying with the idea but progress has been rather slow. Nevertheless I am convinced that flow batteries are going to dominate stationary storage in a decade or so.
I thought about this question: " How do these storage systems compare with H2 as a storage medium??? " It seems to me that these flow through batteries are unbeatable.
Just that "minor" problem is there is no Vanadium to make them work... and its efficiency SUCKS. Otherwise just like Fuel cells... all we need is a mountain or 100, of Platinum and we all would have been driving Hydrogen cars decades ago.... H2 at least can be made from any electrical source. True, storing it only works in a few places in the world, but at least one can make it and store it. Of course H2's round trip efficiency also sucks ass but hey when people keep working at stupid... CH4 makes far more sense than H2 and has near identical efficiencies since we cannot use fuel cells anyways as there is not gigatons of Platinum just hanging around.
I thought that soon they will invent a battery running on sugar too but I checked and it already exists, though in development phase. Lomborg says we condemn poor countries to remain hungry and poor without letting them use fossil fuel which we sell to them for a friends price. But certainly with these storage solutions, local microgrids seem better. By day, people are at work and solar panels charge these flow batteries, then in the evening there is energy waiting for cooking and TV.
yeah yeah, Vanadium being non-flammable and all that. I've had a "minor" spill of the catholyte in a lab and i can tell you, having to swap even 2 liters of carcinogenic giga-caustic liquid is absolutely no joke. Imagine having a spill of a "small" m³-class tank, no thank you, taking a contianed battery fire over this any day. at least afterwards everything is gone :D
the economic use case of long duration energy storage is challenging. The longer the discharge period, the less cycles it will do and this reduces the potential revenue
A lot of people don't think much of flow batteries because of the low density and the advantages of other systems - but one look at history will show how ubiquitous things get replaced overnight by things invented years before. That was the point it became cheap enough. If Redox flow is really reaching this stage? then yes - it could roll out as fast as mobile phones.
The round trip efficiency is the same (slightly less?) as pumped hydro, which that recent ANU* survey kicked back into prominence, whilst offering even higher cycle life. Studying the ANU atlas of sites revealed huge potential, especially in solar rich regions with low populations. The virtue of incorporating floating PV, managing cell temperatures and water evaporation, and shared grid connection, really demands Africa and the Middle East resurrect projects like Desertec but using a different mix of technologies. Flow batteries still have a place for smaller, embedded units, but for real bulk pumped storage with HVDC selling renewable plus storage across borders, pumped storage will still win most of the business. Unless, that is, the tungsten compound redox charge carrier pioneered in Glasgow continued in its development from five or so years ago. This allegedly had an 18 electron capacity per molecule! They were claiming a theoretical energy density of 4 times Lithium technology... Australian National University.
Just that teensy weensy problem there is not enough Tungsten... Just like there is no source for Vanadium. Well, technically there is plenty of Vandium... we just can't actually refine it as it is everywhere in teensy tinsy percentages of every piece of dirt.
@@w8stral Fuel cells also currently suffer from the need for iridium in their proton exchange membranes. (Not sure if this applies to the tungsten salt fuel cell.) This is why I always expect fuel cell solutions to be niche in their problem solving. In tungsten's defense I would only point out that you get a lot of electrons for your tungsten atom. This is all moot as it appears not to have been taken forward after the 2018 announcement.
If a solution is NOT universal used in ALL transportation/power applications then it = USELESS as all it will be is horrifically EXPENSIVE not commercially viable only sustained by government subsidy. Especially since the so called "problem" is not a problem at all for at least several HUNDRED years if not tens of thousands of years when oil may run out. NG would still be running strong even 10,000 years from now. USA has enough coal for the entire world for the next 1000 years even only using surface coal. @@fliprim
What is the round trip efficiency for pumped hydro please. I assume it is woeful , given all the friction in long pipes, pump losses and generator inefficiency. And the cost would be a problem if Snowy Hydro was the installer. Regards
I first read about redox flow batteries about 20 years ago, and it's pretty cool to see them reach the market. The idea of a bromine leak/spill from a Redflow system doesn't sound like fun, but I have no idea whatsoever about what the consequences of a vanadium electrolyte leak/spill might be.
Please look at the website for Gelion Endure battery in Sydney. They maintain that their Zinc bromide battery is extremely safe , as it the key element in fire extinguishing systems. Not poisonous I assume. They also toast a unit on a barbecue to show how safe it is near heat. Regards Mal
To transition to low emissions energy all solutions need to be implemented where the particular technoloy is best suited. However the US Geological Survey estimates of global commodities are 2-5% of the estimates of what is needed. With a measured over 500 ppm CO2 equivalent warming will continue for over a century without further emissions.
I think a good way to use redox would be a hybred with a lithium as the main for day to day use and the redox for longer term like week or month storage. Lithium with it's more efficient exchange and redox for it's low self discharge for longer term, should be a winner for solar and winds ups and downs, to take advantage of times of peak productivity.
@mortenhartvigkristiansen7760 lithium ion batteries have a lower resistance, so less electricity is turned to heat and when that energy is used, over 90% comes back out again for use and I think in the video they said the redox has an efficiency in the 70's percent.
What do you know about the environmental impacts of the original Vanadium, or the new Bromide-Zinc, and their mining/recyclability? I've also heard news of Redox-Flow batteries that are using organic materials or salts ... would be good to have as a follow-up to this video. 👍
Having just had a think, I've calmly and rationally arrived at the conclusion that China's centrally planned economy is delivering many times the energy resource efficiency of the ostensibly competitive mode of development preferred by constituent interests in the West. Infact, upon reflection, their whole infrastructure planning and management approach seems to yield far more vigorous development outcomes than the discrete, incentive driven protocols we enjoy.
Actually it is not really that much as the number of types of tech needed are many. It just allows tailoring of the best tech for a specific use case. We need this if it is to help the climate crisis in time.
You mean suckers to invest money in Vanadium batteries anyone with a brain says.... uh... is there enough sources of Vanadium in this world to make it work? Oh right... NO, No there is NOT.................
Great video. Storage Will be important, but different countries can have different solutions. Countries with a lot of solar could better store as heat with molten salt batteries, while those with lot of hydro or wind Will probably benefit more from batteries. However, modern nuclear Will have a role as backup just in case, and as a result of the daily lobbying and bullying they do.
I'm all for renewable energy, and consequently advocate for energy storage solutions. It is however, very frustrating that consumer stationary storage cost per kWh is not cost competitive. In Australia, I can't find a battery solution (Li ion or other) that has a levelised cost of storage less than AUD $0.42 per kWh (capital cost of AUD $1000 per kWh). Grid supplied electricity is currently $0.32 per kWh.
In April we drove to Oberwintethur in Switzerland to visit family who live there, a 900 km trip in our EV. Ten minutes walk from their apartment is a Cellcube installation with two 50 kW DC rapid EV chargers. These are fed by a Redox flow battery which is charged up by banks of solar panels. There are information boards explaining how it all works but it was interesting to know that the car was being charged in this way. Thanks Dave for another great video.
Very interesting info. Thanks for sharing :-)
900 km in a EV is quite a trip.
@@markfryer9880Depart full, Arrive empty -> probably two DC fast charges required, each between 20 and 40 minutes (depending on the charging capacity of the car)
@@markfryer9880 not really. A lot of people do that. If you take your regular breaks every two hours, it doesn't even take that much longer. Just had a trip of 350 km with my EV and didn't even need to charge, but still did just to get some rest and bathroombreak. Got there with almost full range.
But but….. the grid can’t take all these fandangled EV’s
long-time watcher here, suggesting a video about public transport as an energy saver. Trains aren't an especially new tech but they are the solution to city commutes.
Where you can convince government to keep up with coverage & maintenance for decades, yes, but the corrupt have a habit of degrading the service for personal gain.
We all watch Not Just Bikes, don't we?
Brilliant technology, we are finally getting all of the pieces of the puzzle together to make a sustainable grid a reality.
Well, the grid is a dead horse still being flogged left right and center. Once people begin to understand the massive losses in the grid, they will indeed shy off from it.
It takes 30,000 Watt in the centralized solar park to produce 10,000 Watt in your home. At your home, it would take 10,500 Watt to produce 10,000 watt. So put up your own solar power or wind power locally. That works.
@@davidsvarrer8942Yeah? You do know that a full third of the nation rents, right? Try convincing your landlord to spend money they aren't forced to in this economic climate, even if it adds to their property value. Even if they did they would then put the rent up, knowing you are saving on your power bill, and you wouldn't be able to afford to live there anymore! We need govt subsides to entice landlords to put up PV and install electric hot water and cooking systems where they are on gas. Or regulation that forces them to as the cost of entry, if they want to play the real estate game.
Ehhh problem is the vanadium in almost all flow batteries, like Lithium it's not an issue of abundance it's an issue of processing it into the from you need. I think thermal batteries are a much more promising development, not for grid operation although there are applications for that that make some sense, for example if we can get nuclear reactors which output 500C+ heat you would be able to use thermal batteries to store the heat of the reactor for later use, which means you should be able to run the reactor at near 100% 24/7, but I digress, the near term thing they can do is replace fossil fuels for process heat using the excess from renewable which first makes it cheaper, but also insulates the user from the volatility of fossil fuel pricing.
They are damn cheap to install and reduce operating costs and industry makes up ~50% of our carbon foot print, with ~50% of that being for process heat and we already have thermal batteries that can deliver 1500C temps which is enough to take care of over 90% of process heat so just this could reduce our carbon footprint by 22.5% and it's already economically viable and will accelerate the adoption of renewables as there is a demand for the intermittent energy they can provide.
Getting back to the digression, reason being is you need super critical steam to make steam turbines efficient and you need 374C steam to get super critical steam and if you want to store energy you need significantly higher temp than that 500C would make it worthwhile, but it basically means you need to wait for molten salt fuelled reactors, as we can't run solid fueled reactors that hot while maintaining safety and a 50 year operation of the plant, so it's likely not useful even in the mid term.
But in the long term it could mean that a plant can run nominally at 33% maximum output normally and then ramp upto 100% by using the thermal batteries in a 30 minute window many times a day if needed and as said you can run the actual reactor at near 100% load 24/7 because when it's not generating electricity it can be dumping heat into the thermal battery.
Just Have a Think is the final nail in the coffin of ignorance about renewable energy! 🎉😊
Another excellent video, Dave! 😁
Yes! Thank you!
Yes but I wish he would do or link some hands-on demonstrations of the technologies in action, for example charging and discharging a cell and measuring its storage capacity as a primary source. Or maybe visit one of the installation sites and show the power meter or energy bill of the grid battery to show that the batteries are indeed performing as he describes in the video.
@@samsawesomeminecraft Your apparent questioning of the products performance, to the point your expect a demonstration, appears to be odd indeed.
Are you trying to suggest that purchasers of these batteries are wilfully outlaying significant money for a product that doesn't work as specificed. Are you suggesting that no due dilligence has been undertaken?
Are you suggesting that the product, being part of public electrical supply infrastructure, has not gone through rigourous compliance and performance testing in the countries that it is available in? Do you have any idea of what it takes to qualify and get authorisation for equipment and products to be connected to public utility infrastructure?
Just have a think is an addict to others people's money demanding subsidies for what in his "fatal arrogance" (Hayek) he deem "necessary".
We have no need to join your cult, nor to further enrich it's leader. Stop the commercial spam already.@Ronaldo-ue5if
6:10 The Sheffield paper is Open Access, not Open Source. They are not the same thing, and you should avoid confusing them. Open source means it has a licence that allows copying, modifying, and reproducing. Open Access just means that you can read it without a publisher's fee.
It was a comment trap.
Don't like petty comments...
@@markturner7459 Don't make them then :-)
Thanks for your informative post.
@@xxwookey Maybe naromsky should have been referenced in his reply and not referring to your completely informative comment?
As someone working in the electroplating industry, this is very interesting technology. The use of zinc as the carrier metal I find quite exciting due to its ubiquity, low cost, safety and wide availability. Using these for home storage and grid storage would free up the other energy dense technologies for transport uses.
@Ronaldo-ue5ifwtf
It is worth pointing out some differences between the Vanadium flow batteries (VFB) and the Redflow Zinc Bromine Flow Batteries (ZBFB). The VFB work by changing just the oxidation state of Vanadium in the electrolyte while the ZBFB work as a reversible electroplating process where the electrolyte gets depleted of Zinc which is plated on an electrode. The capcity of the VFB is limited by the size of the tanks of electrolyte, while the ZBFB capacity is limited by both the tank size and the electrode area for plating. Another difference I believe is that Vanadium is relatively rare and so more expensive than Zinc, where we see galvanising, i.e. Zinc plating, everywhere. I am sure they both have an exciting future is stationary battery storage.
Zinc is about 12 times cheaper than Vanadium. The primary producer of Vanadium is China, zinc production is more spread out across the globe.
I've always liked _Flow Battery_ idea.
Why are we using the lightest solid element for _STATIONARY_ power storage? Save the lithium for mobile.
There was an argument for second life use of lithium tech. Once it is too degraded for auto use, it still has a lot of life for stationary use. However this is going to devalue that second life by a lot if these work out making the old Li batteries affordable for off grid in their second life. Hopefully that will buy us time to make reclaiming the components more affordable to decommission them when useless otherwise. We do not need another landfill waste item. The worst part is that if the second life is less profitable the first life will have to suck up the cost.
Sodium ion batteries are getting a lot of traction for just that.
@@swecreations Na look promising since they can also be used for mobile power, and shippable when fully charged too. China has Na-ion vehicles on the road now, but Ellen Musk made substantial investment in lithium, so we will not be seeing competition in the West (owned by Ellen Musk) for a while. Defensive Capitalism.
@@onebylandtwoifbysearunifby5475 Don't know why you care so much about Elon Musk, his company is only one of the manufacturers that are making EVs, and only stands for a minority of all EVs made every year, as well as a minority of all battery development, in fact they do very little when it comes to that.
@@swecreations It's market dominant. Even the EV charging networks NOT belonging to TESLA Motors will be using their plugs, instead of a universal plug. It would be nice if Ellen Musk didn't have a stranglehold-level influence on EV technology adaption in much of the world... But that's not the political reality. Money follows power. Look how many companies have bought and destroyed BETTER competing technologies. It's just the reality of Defensive Capitalism. We won't be moving off lithium as long as Ellen has his thumb on the scale; at least not in good pace. It's just how things work, as history shows us.
As someone who was born and bred In Brisbane, I am quite proud to see a local company doing so well. After being destroyed by successive governments over the last 20-30 years, I have great hope that Australia’s manufacturing industry can re-emerge. It seems this will be off the back of renewable technologies. This is a win win. Australia is blessed with a plethora of natural resources. It’s about time we put it to good use instead of exporting the raw materials and then buying them back in the form of manufactured goods.
So few politicians can understand what is coming. They just can’t grasp what is coming and what is just a fantasy. It happens all the time in all parts of life. Be it technical things or immigration or covid it’s just over there brain capacities, but fortunately the market often helps them in the right direction when everything is obvious after losing a lot of money and time. Better late then never.
Careful! Intelligent idea's like that will get banned by the politicians if they get wind of it. How will they and their globalist handlers keep us under control if we have safe jobs and reliable income?
Classic human taking pride in something they had nothing to do with other than being born in the same region as the idea... Lol 🙄
I think your hope may be misplaced, theres a bunch of reasons we manufacture almost nothing here from workers rights, council permits and planning, wages etc. If the company succeeds there is a very strong probability they will offshore manufacturing, and I think this would be preferable anyway, it will enable them to be cheaper. Thailand is nice and close, that's where I would go if I was them for this product.
@@peteroffpist1621literally half of our politicians have been fighting to do this kind of stuff for decades, it’s the liberal party and their donors that have kept the labor party out of power for the last 15 years
The diversity of sustainable, viable solutions becoming available is mind boggling.
Agreed and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good to have options, bad in that none really stick out as being superior. We cannot have meaningful change on only marginally better options
10 tons of paraffin with melting point at 24C in your family home and your done.
Really? 30kw is the electric engine required to run an oar hauler, it needs this mobile, always on because a mine cost 4 billion and the interest on this can be measured in $/hr. Only diesel or nuclear can provide this. All other techs seems like feel good solutions considering any metal we use in cars or storage. I am an optimist thing can get worse.
@@johnschneider931 With the amount of waste and inefficiency the world has gotten used to, you'll need all the nuclear and oil you can get... and then it will be over.
@@cliffwilliams8616 we have a diversity of use-cases & for each it's common for one tech to stand out as 'best'.
I've been watching this channel for a few years. I recall watching when these systems were only a dream and the tech was untested. It is amazing how much things have changed and how quickly. I know we all think it's a little too late for the climate, but there are a lot of people on this band wagon trying to save the Earth. Thank God! A big thanks to Just Have A Think for keeping us all informed! I started an English language channel and know how much work goes into this, with just one person, when you get started. 😅😊
One of the best parts of this is that it is being used to add electrical systems to remote areas that never had power keeping them from going to coal or other systems we have used to mess things up. Cut off the pollution before it starts.
Combined with solar power, flow batteries offer an alternative to diesel generators in the far north. Gather more power during the long summer days and store it for the long winter nights.
To get the LCOE of $0.22 (kind of high compared to fossil fuels), I believe the batteries need to be discharged frequently. In a winter storage scenario, they’re being discharged once per year. I don’t foresee that being viable.
pretty certain it's still cheaper to just: build much more solar capacity than trying to store it for many months.
@@autohmaedepends how far north we're talking. Beyond the polar circle, no amount of solar capacity is going to help. Then again, up there, wind and water might be better to begin with.
@@richardmetzler7909 I just meant in general, buying more solar is cheaper than batteries to get through winter time. Obviously in the really white north, you can't do that with solar, wind probably works much better yes and whole year round.
At what temperature does the "flow" part cease to flow? Those "long winter nights" are not, in general, what you'd think of as _warm._
RedFlow's Zinc Bromine Batteries are manufactured here in Thailand in a “Free Port” designed for exports. Once they enter Thailand proper they are considered as imports and are subject to taxes. In 2018 the reseller here quoted me US$16,000 for a 10kWh ZBM2. I ended up paying US$2,000 for equivalent sized LFP CATL cell batteries that I imported from China.
a shame
This year is when a lot of the stuff you've shown us are actually starting to come online.I have hope for the future.
This has to be one of the best channels on UA-cam right…so what’s with the low subs!? Anyone that watches and enjoys/appreciates the quality has to spread the word. Let’s get this guy and his team up to 1m subs ASAP!
Was thinking the same. Need some referral traffic from Mark Rober and the likes!!
Nice one. Good topic and my home town of Brisbane gets a mention! I don't have any suggestions for improvement. The list of industrial installations is encouraging. In my day-job I have participated in linking flow batteries to strategic mine planning (along with the renewables part); this move to load-shifting energy to 24 hour operations such as mine process plants is a fascinating engineering challenge and well worth keeping in your topic list.
Another excellent and informative video!!! Really enjoy your channel.
Thank you very much!
Informative? Idiot never said the #1 or #2 reason this will NEVER happen. #1, its efficiency SUCKS ass and #2, there is not enough Vanadium in this world to make this work for even a single small nation let alone the WORLD
The Flow battery system from cmblu from germany is quite interesting too they use carbon based moecules instead of vanadium
@Ronaldo-ue5if Wenn die Gerechtigkeit untergeht, so hat es keinen Wert mehr, dass Menschen leben auf Erden. Es ist nur eine Religion, aber es kann vielerlei Arten des Glaubens geben. Verbindet man Religion nicht mit Moralität, so wird Religion nur zur Gunstbewerbung. (Zitat Immanuel Kant)
I, for one, am delighted to see this technology gaining ground. I remember seeing material from one of the Aussie companies in the field when I was an analyst the NZ Ministry for the Environment, back in 96 or so. At nearly 30 years remove I wouldn't swear to this but I think they were trying highly concentrated solutions of potassium permanganate at the time.
Hahaha, your Robert Llewellyn imitation is perfect!
It's good that there are many disruptors to the energy market ad I hope they will be implemented as soon as possible.
This many disruption may result in chaos :D
@@CraftyF0XHaving continued with burning fossil fuels for decades longer than climate scientists said we should is definitely causing chaos.
The climate chaos will get much worse the longer we continue burning f.fuels (and cutting forests down).
We need to end fossil fuel subsidies & divert to energy transition. We have the technology.
@@CraftyF0X ...to vested interests living in fear of holding 'stranded assets', certainly.
@Ronaldo-ue5if False witness!
Yea right. Let us know when you find a Gigaton of Vanadium or Platinum to make this stuff work. This has been known for decades... Just idiots like you and "just have a think" finally cottoned to Physics and Chemistry think it is the shit...
Grid capacity to the millions of ends of the National Electricity Grid and Grid stability are huge factors in our electrical future.
A friendly challenge. What is the point of covering potential technological solutions needed to transition away from carbon-based energy without 1.) quantifying the carbon footprint of the implementation and maintenance of a new tech (or existing tech as in this video), 2.) understanding the capacity of the supply lines needed to adopt new tech (i.e., feasibility) and 3.) projecting how they would fit in to a wider transition strategy? It's all magic thinking until these techs get properly scoped out.
I enjoy learning about the advancements of long-term energy storage. Thank you!
Our pleasure!
Realanswer?
Nuclear energy
I've followed Redox, Redflow and Ambri(liquid metal) for years. What is a curiosity to me is the incredibly slow uptake these technologies have experienced. We need to decarbonize, and yet the various grid operators are so conservative that these technologies need a decade just to see the light of day it seems.
Because power grid like roads and other major at scale infrastructure involves very long planning, rollout and cost recovery periods. It could be faster but it would cost exponentially more to replace major grid designs and components every 5 years.
Long term investments and long term planning mean slow adoption.
Also, cost - flow batteries are expensive. Which is surprising really given they don't use expensive materials such as lithium. I suspect going forward they may also struggle to compete with Sodoum Iron
@@dancoffey4293 True. Every time I've watched a newer technology come out in hopes of displacing the incumbent, people tend to forget that the incumbent isn't standing still. Unless the technology is at a demonstrated maximum efficiency, it is likely to continue improving. Unless it is quite mature, there will remain significant gains. Lithium (or sodium) chemistries are nowhere near mature
@Ronaldo-ue5if stop spamming
We are looking at home battery backups. I work from home over half the time now. It is amazing at how much more productive working from home is, but our power provider is not the best and we have an unusual number of power issues from complete blackouts to pulses (power on, off, on, off.. very quickly) to brownouts of various degrees. So, I must have reliable power for IT and for Internet service connectivity that may have to last for days.
The city I live in is more than 50k people, a corporate world headquarters and home to many tech companies. The power issues are inexcusable, but the money they collect goes to fat pockets, not to infrastructure that is needed.
After the dozens of innovations and breakthroughs I've watched come and go in the battery industry, I'll believe this one when i see it
I mean, these batteries are already out there, what's not to believe?
(and voltage regulation) It might be nice, though, to use less toxic and even less expensive multi valent elements for flow batteries such as manganese, iron or a multitude of others. Of course there are problems to overcome. In Aquious solution, for instance, ferrous iron is far more soluble than Ferric iron so there is a problem of precipitation to overcome. As for the ZnBr flow battery, it includes flowing liquid but is really a reverse electroplating cell unlike other flow batteries. Whatever the case, we really must get away from using Li batteries for static applications. The alternatives are superior in many ways. Longer life, cyclable between 0 and 100% with no damage, safer from a fire point of view and many other characteristics.
We need a battery powered by the electrical potential between hope and false hope in new battery technology 😂
Thanks for the "flow" of information!
Certainly encouraging to hear. Long term storage has always been the albatross of the renewable energy industry.
Sounds good as long as the materials used are sustainable
Now can you make one that will store enough energy for a single household for one to two weeks without recharging? Size? Cost? Can I stick it safely in a basement?
Well, the video states it's non flammable, so one point to safety here. Size? Look at the redflow video, it isn't small. Cost? A lot! Sorry.
Good question. For a large scale project it was the same as Lithium-ion
@@Sekir80 the unit I saw was fairly small at 10KwH. Average home use is 30-50 per day (small to large house). I could easily see a 5 wide by 3 high setup in a basement or extended garage yielding 150 KWH.
That would give you 3-5 days without recharging (possibly longer if you conserve energy as in the case of an extended grid down or long lasting inclement weather (assuming solar for recharge)).
Even a setup twice the size is not inconceivable for a single home with some planning yielding 6-10 days full use without recharging. Price is of course another matter but it appears that the materials in use are not overly expensive and I’m sure mass manufacturing is possible.
All in all it seems like a worthwhile solution to pursue for home use although it may not be feasible for a few years yet as it’s all still in development and a lot of cost reduction would be needed for widespread home use.
Unfortunately VRFBs are not particularly suited for household scale applications. They need a low pH to avoid precipitation of dissolved vanadium and thus rely on sulfuric acid in dangerous concentrations. Vanadium is also toxic. They need very strict operating temperatures (25-40C) again for the solubility issues of vanadium. The possibility of a chemical leak inside a home is almost a non-starter. I remember one company wanting to bury a small VRFB in your yard but that would be a nightmare to maintain and service.
@@primordial_platypus Of course I agree with your assessment especially on size, not too big. Just bigger than a lithium cell design.
I wouldn't comment on your "average" electricity usage, because we live very different lives (130kWh for me is one full month).
Price, yeah, mass manufacturing could and will bring it down.
Did I comment on power here? Important to keep in mind these batteries are pretty weak in that aspect, but even 0.1C for 150kWh battery gives you 15kW, which might be enough for you use case.
I've just spent a few seconds googling & it seems, ironically, that Zinc Bromide is used in oil and gas drilling fluids!
I love when non-chemists talk about batteries, sometimes I hear very good simplifications that would otherwise take me hours to explain 🙂
BTW: 8:39 2 electrons on valence is a commonality between the so called transition metals, the metals between the second and the 13th column, with some exceptions.
There are other more important things in play here ;-)
From all the metals, zinc is the one that really wants to be reduced, to gain electrons for whatever reason, but that depends on the donor of electrons, too.
Thank you
This is absolutely huge. I opened this video thinking is this yet another battery great at everything but leaving the lab. Instead, this is exactly what I've been hoping to see for years. Commercially viable grid-scale batteries. And they are already produced en masse, with accelerating speed. Many many competitors adding their flavor and price to the tech. Now we can churn out so much more wind and solar when we solve their intermittency problem with these. So glad I clicked on this video.
@Ronaldo-ue5ifpeddle your book of myths elsewhere
The RTE is the crux of flow, this includes pumping power. If you go long term without sizing the battery cell bigger, no peak power can be attained relative to the energy volume available, thus long term storage. I was the 1st to suggest combining different types has synergistic energy creation, in my GAIA energy storage thesis. 500% FF burning reduction and 700% GHG elimination with each % of energy storage penetration.
Between Lithium high peak energy, is a need that, slow and slow flow, fits nicely in, in-between pumped hydro and evening peak types, like lithium.
I have spoken to this subject at IEEE consultants network of san Diego.
It seems like these might just be the answer for EV charging stations where a source of energy can be located nearby. Rather than taxing the grid and all the inverter stuff you could generate, store, and use direct DC current bypassing the stress on current grid tech. I am seeing solar rooftop on shopping malls with massive storage near and charging stations on the lot below. Direct charge in daytime and stored charge at night making them available 24/7/365. I other areas with wind you do likewise but have to have turbines nearby. Point is you lose all the transmission costs and losses plus the conversion costs from/to AC and DC. With proper management you still could back feed the grid with any excess in the early am or even when needed once you have usage trends established.
Thank you.
You're welcome!
In the UK, if we could provide half our electricity from wind, then we would need an average continuous sustained output of 15GW. Wind though is intermittent, and on average only generates a third of its maximum output, so we would need a peak generation power of 45GW. Also because there can be extended periods of no wind then extensive battery backup is required. So a one week anti-cyclonic weather stall would leave us needing 2520GWh of battery storage. At a mean estimate of $200 per KWh, this would cost $504 billion.
I think that iron-air batteries are going to win the long-duration storage race but I'm really just happy there is a race and there are so many excellent contenders! Another excellent video!
I think each use-class will have a different "winner" which will be supplanted in due order, hopefully without a repeat of the lead-acid vs Nickel-Iron disgrace. (Nickel-Iron was clearly superior for it's intended use - powering vehicles - but was essentially killed by aggressive marketing & lobbying).
I truly LOVE your channel, and DEVOUR all your videos.
THANK YOU for your consummate, highly inspired output of fascinating content - I watch only "no-B.S." youtube videos, and your channel (and just as importantly, your demeanor) are, very sincerely, among my absolute favorite.
I hope you keep doing what you love, on and on and on, you diamond in the rough.
When you say none B.S. you mean, agree with your 'beliefs'.
Wow, thank you!
@@manoo422
Well, by "B.S.," I obviously mean things like inane drivel... undignified fallaciousness... misguided pretense... you know - any and all the things we collectively refer to, in our society, as _"bullshit"!!_
@@justinklenk When you say 'our society' you mean 'you're echo chamber' You are brainwashed into a belief system by constant MSM propaganda to the point you actually think its true. All the while not noticing you a just part of the flock...in a pen.
Yea!!! Another SOLUTIONS episode! Well done. 😊
Wow ,I can nearly understand all of that 😵💫
Great video: thanks! Just goes to show how individual technologies are all well and good in themselves, but the real game-changers in life come with the melding and incorporation of multiple technologies into multiple types of systems and applied multiple ways to our needs. I'd call this a critical component, delivering a variety of benefits across a multitude of needs. It's just great to hear when something like this hits the market maturity point.
In addition to cost info … I would very much like information on round trip efficiency. Some of these new battery technologies fare relatively poorly … 70% … or 50% … compared to >90% for Li-Ion today. I guess if solar PV is super cheap and limitless (including available land) then low efficiency can win out, but under any other scenario it is a show stopper.
Great comparison info-_-_ Thanks Dave
Salgenx has some distinct advantages... First - NO Membrane!! Second - Saltwater solution!!
Since these two components are the most expensive parts of a Flow battery... This should drastically lower initial AND on-going cost!
Great Video as Always! I have come to the conclusion that we have the technology to end the use of Fossil Juice. We just lack the will to stop the massive Fossil industry that literally is using energy from the past and has no thought of the future. The technology is there but there is always the "lets live in the past" people around that is the real problem.
The good thing about all these different energy storage tech that's being worked on is that it's going to put a lot of downwards pressure on the price, because it's not going to matter which is the best, but which are the ones that are good enough, in Otherworlds, many of these solutions will work for one thing or another and because so many solutions are being worked on to get to the same goal, it might be difficult for the industry to keep prices high, which is good for consumers as downwards pressure is what we want.
Thanks Bro - mean.
It's a very close race between exponential change in climate and technology development. Currently, climate change is ahead and likely underestimated
So many people that are negative to wind and solar don’t understand that we need overproduction of electricity and storage is the way to get low prices for electricity and complement our base production of electricity with hydro and nuclear.
The most tragic side of all of this is that while we're replacing fossil fuels, fossil fuel usage and emissions continues to grow. The only dip came during the pandemic.
@Ronaldo-ue5ifجزاك الله خير
Thanks for the video, as always!
Still enjoying his lectures
'Scrutinize the minutiae' is your best line yet.
I don't think this technology is the "final link" or the "final nail". But seeing improvements is always good.
You misunderstood what was said, long term storage is the final piece needed to start really replacing oil and gas, not specifically this technology. Why? Very simple
Building out 1 GW of solar or wind is already cheaper than building a GW of nuclear energy, the problem is, no wind, no power, but if long term storage can get cheap enough that you could build 1 GW wind + enough long term storage to keep delivering power when it's not windy for the same price as nuclear or oil, or just slightly more, well it'll be very easy to invest in.
We still have a ways to go before we reach that price point, but that is what is meant in the video.
@@Yattayatta Not at all. I'm just not convinced there won't be something better soon.
@@mrbr549 Oh for sure, but we just need to reach slightly above cost parity for efforts to take off.
This is one of the hard things about predicting the future of technology. For 10 years it looked like renewable energy was going nowhere fast, then over the course of 2 years we've reached a tipping point and now all of a sudden everyone wants to build out wind power.
It would have been a terrible investment 10 years ago, now it's starting to look really good even for a pro nuclear person like myself.
so you're waiting for _Mr Fusion_
it is a major nail though
Another advantage for Redflow is that the physical and environmental costs of obtaining Bromide is a lot more effective than mining and processing vanadium.
Awesome! Can't wait to never hear about this ever again.
Just have a think where the vanadium is going to come from for these batteries - Bushveld Minerals listed on the FTSE are commissioning the largest vanadium electrolyte plant outside of China.
A major problem with vanadium flow batteries is that vanadium is a relatively rare metal. The price will skyrocket alongside demand.
This isn't vanadium
Another refreshingly straightforward video Dave. Keep it up
Thanks!
Excellent explanation, thanks
This channel is convincing me that, given enough time, we can achieve the technology to maintain a high level of energy consumption. But we do not have enough time. The biosphere is under increasing stress, the climate is showing signs that it may tip over to a more chaotic state at any time and there is quite a lot of warming already baked in.
We need these technologies. But we are focusing too much on what comes naturally to our economic system, i.e. research, development and production of new things, and not enough on what is really urgent and utimately our goal: reducing atmospheric CO2 and protecting the environment.
We cannot wait for these technologies to maintain our lifestyle. I'm afraid we must reduce energy consumption asap, tighten our belts, pay more taxes and divert resources from wasteful things towards research, mitigation and adaptation.
wow! It's lovely to see a mid-to-long term energy storage solution that is being widely commercialized. Solutions that perform well in high temperatures is going to be vital as well. I wonder at what point we'll start burying Li+ batteries just to keep them cool
The biggest problem with seasonal storage is that you basically have just one cycle per year and thus only make money once a year. A peaker plant (-battery) can earn money once (or even twice) a day! Not to mention frequency stabilization.
==> We'll have to invent a completely new business model for seasonal storage.
Supporting fossil fuel use cost the world $7 trillion last year including $1 t direct subsidies & the rest indirect subsidies including the huge costs of health/environment/climate disaster impacts from fossil fuel burning.
In a sane world, we would end the direct f.fuel subsidies & divert them to support the energy transition as a priority...also to ensure developing nations leap-frog f.fuel by helping them install renewables + storage, & fair loss & damage payments to nations impacted heavily by anthropogenic global warming who have not contributed to the cause.
Trillions go to subsidized fossil fuel.
We can divert 10 percent to get the ball rolling, it just needs the pencil heads to figure out the profit margin as their houses get blown away by hurricanes and floods. I mean, we turned industry over in a heartbeat during ww2. Climate change is ww3
Thanks Dave. 🙂👍
Zinc Bromide certainly has been around for many years. I saw a version which could be made at home described in a popular science publication from the 1920's. No pumps were involved because of the small scale, but the principle was very similar to these, without the emphasis on recharging the cell. It was being done by topping up the low cost and disposable electrolytes instead. Zn-Br cells are also very likely less toxic, and probably cheaper to produce and run than V-Ion cells. Vanadium is a fairly uncommon metal.
Incidentally, what are the cell voltages for both types? That also affects overall battery power density, size and cost.
I'm not a chemist, but is there a similar technology which uses Aluminium and another Halide such as Chlorine? Al and Cl are much more abundant than Zn and Br, so if it would work, it might be even more economically viable than the Zn-Br technology.
Thanks
Excellent video! If I may, I noticed there was a small problem with statics in the sound that might need to be checked. Again, thank excellent work as always!
Yes, I was aware. Too late to fix unfortunately, but thanks for pointing it out.
@JustHaveaThink no worries! Things like that are happening sometimes 😊
Redflow has a really good product. Now they need to get the cost down.
As with all 'renewables' they are fantastically expensive, very limited in capacity, and dont last long...perfect for large corporations to make max profit from but worthless for energy security..
@@manoo42220 years is not long?
@@manoo422 Huh? All renewables are fantastically expensive? Really? Have you just woken up from a really long coma?
@@MikeAG333 Clearly you get all your information from MSM propaganda headlines. The are ALL far more expensive but severely limited compared to simple, cheap, secure fossil fuel, exactly why China are doing it...
@Ronaldo-ue5if Stop spamming this crap. There are no gods at all. Allah is a fiction, invented by the human imagination,. as are all other gods. Take your nonsense to a more appropriate corner of the internet.
Thanks for another great video!
Thank you, very informative
Although Invinity Energy Systems may be making a mark in the USA their headquarters are in Liverpool Street, England. and they have manufacturing facilities in Bathgate, West Lothian and Vancouver, Canada.
As always, very interesting - Thank You!
Glad you enjoyed it
Great stuff as always! *feeding the algorithm*
Appreciate it!
I am glad that we seem to not be putting all our battery eggs in one basket so to speak as I am becoming more skeptical about Li-Ion technology because of the increasing risks posed by them as they become more common in our urban environments. Fire is a terrible event no matter what causes it but when it includes Li-Ion batteries things get much worse very quickly because of how they burn, what toxins are created by it, and how difficult it is for fire fighters to deal with it. The risk of it causing a fire is no more than any other flammable material but putting it out is a whole lot harder than most materials.
Edifying. As always! Thank you!
Thank you for featuring flow batteries Dave. Been on my radar for a few years since South Africa has such an abundance of Vanadium resources. There is a local company Bushveld Minerals that has been toying with the idea but progress has been rather slow. Nevertheless I am convinced that flow batteries are going to dominate stationary storage in a decade or so.
I thought about this question: " How do these storage systems compare with H2 as a storage medium??? " It seems to me that these flow through batteries are unbeatable.
Just that "minor" problem is there is no Vanadium to make them work... and its efficiency SUCKS. Otherwise just like Fuel cells... all we need is a mountain or 100, of Platinum and we all would have been driving Hydrogen cars decades ago.... H2 at least can be made from any electrical source. True, storing it only works in a few places in the world, but at least one can make it and store it. Of course H2's round trip efficiency also sucks ass but hey when people keep working at stupid... CH4 makes far more sense than H2 and has near identical efficiencies since we cannot use fuel cells anyways as there is not gigatons of Platinum just hanging around.
@@w8stral Are there no non Vanadium based system ?
Very nice and interesting video. Thank you :)
I thought that soon they will invent a battery running on sugar too but I checked and it already exists, though in development phase.
Lomborg says we condemn poor countries to remain hungry and poor without letting them use fossil fuel which we sell to them for a friends price. But certainly with these storage solutions, local microgrids seem better. By day, people are at work and solar panels charge these flow batteries, then in the evening there is energy waiting for cooking and TV.
Sounds like a great option for the future for housing power storage.
yeah yeah, Vanadium being non-flammable and all that. I've had a "minor" spill of the catholyte in a lab and i can tell you, having to swap even 2 liters of carcinogenic giga-caustic liquid is absolutely no joke. Imagine having a spill of a "small" m³-class tank, no thank you, taking a contianed battery fire over this any day. at least afterwards everything is gone :D
Yeah, "in the lab", but you just dropped by UA-cam to drop some samples off I suppose. 😂
This new battery in the video isn't vanadium. It's a flow battery, but not vanadium.
the economic use case of long duration energy storage is challenging. The longer the discharge period, the less cycles it will do and this reduces the potential revenue
A lot of people don't think much of flow batteries because of the low density and the advantages of other systems - but one look at history will show how ubiquitous things get replaced overnight by things invented years before. That was the point it became cheap enough. If Redox flow is really reaching this stage? then yes - it could roll out as fast as mobile phones.
Gracias
The round trip efficiency is the same (slightly less?) as pumped hydro, which that recent ANU* survey kicked back into prominence, whilst offering even higher cycle life.
Studying the ANU atlas of sites revealed huge potential, especially in solar rich regions with low populations. The virtue of incorporating floating PV, managing cell temperatures and water evaporation, and shared grid connection, really demands Africa and the Middle East resurrect projects like Desertec but using a different mix of technologies.
Flow batteries still have a place for smaller, embedded units, but for real bulk pumped storage with HVDC selling renewable plus storage across borders, pumped storage will still win most of the business.
Unless, that is, the tungsten compound redox charge carrier pioneered in Glasgow continued in its development from five or so years ago. This allegedly had an 18 electron capacity per molecule! They were claiming a theoretical energy density of 4 times Lithium technology...
Australian National University.
Just that teensy weensy problem there is not enough Tungsten... Just like there is no source for Vanadium. Well, technically there is plenty of Vandium... we just can't actually refine it as it is everywhere in teensy tinsy percentages of every piece of dirt.
@@w8stral Fuel cells also currently suffer from the need for iridium in their proton exchange membranes. (Not sure if this applies to the tungsten salt fuel cell.) This is why I always expect fuel cell solutions to be niche in their problem solving. In tungsten's defense I would only point out that you get a lot of electrons for your tungsten atom.
This is all moot as it appears not to have been taken forward after the 2018 announcement.
@Ronaldo-ue5if ?
If a solution is NOT universal used in ALL transportation/power applications then it = USELESS as all it will be is horrifically EXPENSIVE not commercially viable only sustained by government subsidy. Especially since the so called "problem" is not a problem at all for at least several HUNDRED years if not tens of thousands of years when oil may run out. NG would still be running strong even 10,000 years from now. USA has enough coal for the entire world for the next 1000 years even only using surface coal. @@fliprim
What is the round trip efficiency for pumped hydro please. I assume it is woeful , given all the friction in long pipes, pump losses and generator inefficiency. And the cost would be a problem if Snowy Hydro was the installer.
Regards
I first read about redox flow batteries about 20 years ago, and it's pretty cool to see them reach the market. The idea of a bromine leak/spill from a Redflow system doesn't sound like fun, but I have no idea whatsoever about what the consequences of a vanadium electrolyte leak/spill might be.
Please look at the website for Gelion Endure battery in Sydney. They maintain that their Zinc bromide battery is extremely safe , as it the key element in fire extinguishing systems. Not poisonous I assume. They also toast a unit on a barbecue to show how safe it is near heat.
Regards
Mal
@@malcolmsteel5157 Thanks for the pointer! 😻
Really interesting ! Thanks !
Glad you liked it!
To transition to low emissions energy all solutions need to be implemented where the particular technoloy is best suited. However the US Geological Survey estimates of global commodities are 2-5% of the estimates of what is needed. With a measured over 500 ppm CO2 equivalent warming will continue for over a century without further emissions.
Sounds wonderful. Let the party begin 😂🤣🤪
I think a good way to use redox would be a hybred with a lithium as the main for day to day use and the redox for longer term like week or month storage. Lithium with it's more efficient exchange and redox for it's low self discharge for longer term, should be a winner for solar and winds ups and downs, to take advantage of times of peak productivity.
Can you explain how lithium is more efficient?
@mortenhartvigkristiansen7760 lithium ion batteries have a lower resistance, so less electricity is turned to heat and when that energy is used, over 90% comes back out again for use and I think in the video they said the redox has an efficiency in the 70's percent.
What do you know about the environmental impacts of the original Vanadium, or the new Bromide-Zinc, and their mining/recyclability? I've also heard news of Redox-Flow batteries that are using organic materials or salts ... would be good to have as a follow-up to this video. 👍
I was thinking the same thing.
Having just had a think, I've calmly and rationally arrived at the conclusion that China's centrally planned economy is delivering many times the energy resource efficiency of the ostensibly competitive mode of development preferred by constituent interests in the West. Infact, upon reflection, their whole infrastructure planning and management approach seems to yield far more vigorous development outcomes than the discrete, incentive driven protocols we enjoy.
Seems like an arms race right now for disruptive battery tech.
Actually it is not really that much as the number of types of tech needed are many. It just allows tailoring of the best tech for a specific use case. We need this if it is to help the climate crisis in time.
You mean suckers to invest money in Vanadium batteries anyone with a brain says.... uh... is there enough sources of Vanadium in this world to make it work? Oh right... NO, No there is NOT.................
Great video. Storage Will be important, but different countries can have different solutions. Countries with a lot of solar could better store as heat with molten salt batteries, while those with lot of hydro or wind Will probably benefit more from batteries.
However, modern nuclear Will have a role as backup just in case, and as a result of the daily lobbying and bullying they do.
I'm all for renewable energy, and consequently advocate for energy storage solutions.
It is however, very frustrating that consumer stationary storage cost per kWh is not cost competitive. In Australia, I can't find a battery solution (Li ion or other) that has a levelised cost of storage less than AUD $0.42 per kWh (capital cost of AUD $1000 per kWh). Grid supplied electricity is currently $0.32 per kWh.