Are Flow Batteries The Answer to Long-term, Seasonal Energy Storage?
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- Meeting our energy needs with renewables is going to require some pretty substantial storage solutions. Luckily, there are plenty of new technologies based on very old ideas, such as flow batteries which were first patented in 1879, are plugging the gaps! Australia's Redflow is one such company leveraging the power of the flow battery and claims its Zinc Bromine technology is one of the world's safest, easily scalable and most sustainable storage options going. Sounds too good to be true?! Join Robert as he meets the team to find out!
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00:00 Longer Term Energy Storage
02:05 How does it work?
04:00 Why is it called redflow?!
06:00 Are flow batteries impacted by temperature?
07:30 How does it compare?
09:38 Simple manufacturing
10:00 Fully charged stack
11:30 Concluding thoughts
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I do wish the stats for the battery had been covered in the episode, but I was able to find it online. The battery shown is the Redflow ZBM3 battery. It holds 10kWh @ 48V and power is 3kW (0.3C), and it weighs 530 pounds (240kg). The final spec that I really really need to know is the cost!! I'm expecting somewhere in the range of $5k - $10k to be competitive with LiFe batteries. Obviously main cons here are weight related, so power density per kg and energy density per kg. For reference my Chevy Bolt battery weighs about 1000 pounds (so, two of these) and holds 66kWh (3.3x as energy dense) and can provide >150kW of power (>25x as power dense).
What voltage does your Chevy Bolt battery produce?
(I understand Power = Voltage x Current, so I am interested to know the voltage)
Best Wishes. ☮
Bill Carlson
these are not made to go into anything that moves. they are to be setup in buildings or outside and stay there until they need to be replaced.
A Standard range Tesla Model 3 with a 60 kWh battery pack is $43,000. Let's say the battery pack makes up for half the price of the car, you pay $21,500 for a 60 kWh battery pack. That's $358 / kHw.
If this battery wants to be competitive with LFP batteries, It needs to be less than $3000 for 10 kWh.
Cheers
The number of recharge cycli before the battery deteriorates is an important figure in battery comparison. If the red-flow battery can do 10 times more recharge cycli than Li-ion (LiFP for instance), then it is a much cheaper energy storage technology considering the life span of the battery. The red-flow battery is not suitable of mobile applications.
The big problem with this tech is that it is not *really* a flow battery. What people actually think of as a flow battery is an energy storage system where the active part (plates in the case) do *not* change in any way during charge/discharge process. If all chemical changes are contained in the fluid(s), then a battery capacity can be scaled trivially by making the tanks bigger. It doesn't work that way here because the plates get loaded with zink while charging and thus there is a maximum amount of liquid that one plate can process.
only matters if it's difficult to expand the number of plates, doesn't sound like that's the case
I was just thinking the same thing and wondering if this would effect the easy scaling. Thanks for answering this question. This really limits the cheap scaling of this battery. Other forms of flow battery can be scaled very cheaply with tank size increase.
I believe it’s a hybrid flow battery from what I’ve heard being discussed.
Yeah,
But if it's cheap then it's okay
I love how honest and open this man from Redflow is - lovely chap!
if he is so honest, why didn´t he tell us that bromine is very toxic and dangerous element? a little error in bromine capturing agent added to the electrolyte , and people will die if leak occurs. The only best battery is silver-zinc, it is not toxic, you can manufacture it at home, and you won't need to pay thousands of bucks to battery manufacturers.
@@absolute___zero That was something I noticed to. Zink isn't that bad, but bromine is scary stuff. To be fair, the natural gas everybody has in their home here is flamable as hell (pun inteded). But bromine is nothing to scoff at... I'd be interested to see what happens when something goes wrong with this. He is a lot more open about how and what than I would have thought. But the "its water with a few non toxic things added" was a bit..... To easily said I think. Perhaps he's correct (he obviously knows a lot more about it then me). But he also does have his product on the line. So a second opinion might be nice...
Great video, I was waiting for this for years, since you have released the first red flow battery video. Seems like a perfect battery for example at home, etc. Cannot wait to hear more about this in the coming years.
Great to see the progress being made by Redflow. I have been following them for years. My view is that we should save lithium for mobile applications where lower weight / higher energy density is critical and use other technologies such as flow batteries and Liquid Metal batteries (invented by Professor Donald Sadoway from MIT now being developed by Ambri) for static applications where weight and volume are not critical. This would help with both supply and prices for both. Flow batteries using cheaper materials need to scale up rapidly to lower their prices and should become much more competitive.
Also of interest in Australia:
The vanadium redox flow battery was developed by emeritus professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos st the University of NSW in Sydney but unfortunately has not been commercialised much here in Australia yet. Large grid scale batteries using this technology have reached up to 400 MWh in China.
Thomas Maschmeyer at the University of Sydney has developed a non flow zinc bromine battery that replaces the liquid with a gel and is now being commercialised by Gelion and interestingly can be manufactured in existing lead acid battery factories. Would be great if this could also be featured on the Fully Charged Show!
And really put a lot of effort in recycling of lithium batteries.
So we've been following the same things really. I'm curious about Sadoway's battery though because I barely seen in media coverage lately (post-covid).
Totally agree. Lithium is the worst choice for stationary storage.
The use of non Li batteries for static applications would bring down the price of EVs and speed their adoption.
@@wlhgmk In theory yes, but in reality EV prices will always be kept artificially high, and as soon as they are adopted on a wide scale, EV owners will be taxed to the hilt.
Thank you for continuing to cover this. I am very glad to see the work in manufacturability that has gone on. The quick look at the main board looks better than 5 years ago.
So glad you came back Robert - this is such an exciting technology! More of this kind of tech would be awesome 🙂
Awesome to see an update!!! Really great to see how they are going, and to hear how the 4+ hour battery market is picking up and working on mass scale, as well as that they are helping solve other problems like left over salt from desalination, given how that is also a problematic pollution when too highly concentrated which people are trying to work on by splitting up plants to make them smaller and spread out, so nice to think that batteries that use salt could really help with that issue.
Energy Storage really is an important part of the future and it's great to see that Redflow is trying to solve this.
I would love for Fully Charged to cover the Swedish company Azelio as well. They use aluminium to store energy as heat and then they can transform heat into energy and also use the extra heat to warm up areas.
I'd love to see these come out for residential battery storage systems. I'd happily use one of these as a method of storing my solar energy and off-peak grid times and discharging during peak grid times.
This is great progress and a step in the correct direction.
A friend of mine worked very high up in Redflow for a few years, a super interesting company, and has some quirky advantages over lithium ion that they've found some markets like.
Unfortunate that they're expensive, but I hope that in time and with scale, they can bring that down. Their advantage is the longevity of life so it can be amortised over a much longer period than lithium.
That's the Achilles's Heel of any innovative technological application. It's very expensive for what it offers to start off, so it really relies on people willing to pay that premium price early on to give them what they need to scale and expand. But, unfortunately, what often happens is that lots of people stand on the sidelines and say, "I'm not sure this will go anywhere. I'll wait until it proves itself and the costs come down before I put my money into it." And then, when it ends up falling through because _everyone_ did that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; "See, I told you it wasn't going anywhere. I'm glad I didn't waste my money on that."
This makes me proud as an Australian to see stuff being made here 👍
Designed and researched in Australia. Made overseas. At least the high value work is being done here.
@@HaakonOfTheShadows
Typical, that's less than impressive 😏
It's impressive regardless of where they manufacture.
@@toby9999 Another case of our great tech and ideas, sent off to somewhere else to get made and not benifit our own country.
Impressive, tech yes.
@@Danger_mouse You talking about the South African in charge :)
This is awesome, I was just at Simon's farm in Tassie not long ago when he gave AEVA Tas a full tour and also a talk at our meeting. They are the amazing and is good for grid level storage solutions and safer than Li-ion.
I'm really happy that you're covering these folks again
THANKS ROBERT, FOR SHARING THIS WITH US 🤗💚💚💚
This technology has matured beautifully. They have really covered the bases, making it compatible with other systems. I hope to see it available soon for home use.
Rob, along with most of us who watched this video, nods along like he fully understands it all. When in reality, we're all going...eh...yer, sure, that's how it works.
It's not that hard. When this compound is formed, it absorbs electrical energy. When it breaks down, it releases energy (electrons). Applying an electrical load releases electrons, which makes them flow/vibrate along conductors.
@@zygmuntthecacaokakistocrat6589 and we are going ...eh .....yer, sure that's how it works again
Don’t worry, I work in the electroplating industry. It does make sense, and is basically electroplating. This is good tech, relatively simple tech at it’s heart, smartly re-engineered for the modern world. Simple, cost effective, cheap materials, readily available and understood. No significant fire issues and relatively safe chemicals. No good for cars, but brilliant for fixed storage. Ideal for factories, buildings with basements etc. I would happily have this at my home, in my garage for example.
Can we connect this to an inverter like the sun2000 from Huawei or any other one alike? This is very nice, especially by having twice the capacity on the same volume and being able to simulate different types of battery.
Lol I keep seeing Crichton, he’s a lovely bloke , makes us larf loads……pushing the spear deeper into I. C. E. with every show 😂❤😂
Pure genius being able to mimic other battery types. Very clever.
Fantastic to see Australia doing this
Well done from another Brisbane resident
An excellent update! Thank you
Nice one Robert, thanks for the update
Thank you for the show,
I’ve had my eye on these batteries for years. They just seem to be the superior technology for a static (e.g. residential) application.
However, when I seriously looked to buy some there were a few show-stoppers.
They are big & heavy, requiring a forklift or other mechanical aid to place.
They require a fair bit of space.
They only play (or at least used to only play) with a limited range of solar inverters.
The killer, though, is that in an urban residential application they still don’t make economic sense. Their return on investment is 10-15 years, depending on current grid tariffs.
So I’d love to install these in my home but they still aren’t quite there.
Perhaps as grid tariffs become more expensive and Redflow realise efficiencies of manufacture and scale, there will be a point at which they do make economic sense for the typical house on the grid.
Having said all of that, they would be my first choice for any off-grid application.
It’s a really promising product.
Competing with Helen on highly technical features - very impressive Robert 👏 Interesting feature - thanks
Thanks. Well done. Great Vid. Jim Bell (Australia)
Fantastic Video, Amazing tech, well explained and presented........ and NO politics and un necessary bashing anyone. I hope this style of content will continue on Fully Charged. Well done.
Fantastic! Keep it up, Australia!
A very interesting (introductory) video -- thank you!
I’ve been following Redflow for a few years and since they are only an hour’s drive down the road, it has been east to keep up with progress. So far, it appears they are steadily moving towards being competitive but they have had a host of technical and installation problems. Being a small player up against Tesla, LG etc. they can’t incentivise installers and don’t get much of the residential market. They are getting lots of the larger storage market such as backup for cell/mobile phone towers.
It's all happening in Brisbane. It's a a heck of a place. Needs more train lines though and less sprawl.
Fantastic. I hope the materials are sourced ethically.
Chemistry has never been more interesting! Hope it works out.
There is a big limitation with this concept: the storage capacity is limited by the size of the plates instead of the amount of fluid. The zinc is collected on the plates when it is charged, whereas with other type of flow batteries no material precipitates on the plates and one could have a battery module fed with a limitless amount of fluid to have an energy storage capacity as big as needed.
mimicking different battery kinds is an interesting idea, very neat with also safety during fire
What a great update video
Great to see a video of a product made in my back yard. 👍🔋⚡
Now that might be “old” technology but it’s still dope af! Will this be on show at fully charged?!? Fully charged is going to be awesome!!!
The crucial number, not mentioned here, is the round-trip efficiency: AC joules out divided by AC joules in.
and the final price.
sure, this will depend on many factors, but there should be some figures thrown around to let us make an idea.
Could you please highlight some basic specs for this stuff? Round-trip efficiency? Max power output per unit etc. Those metrics are really what will make or break this tech cause it influences the financials. You can present that those types of metrics in a easy to understand way I'm sure. Just ask him stuff like; how many dryers could this thing power at the same time? It's funny and gives the audience a feeling for how much of this stuff is needed for actual usable storage
The unit stores 10 kwh, 80% round trip efficiency. 500-3000w discharge rate, 5kw peak. Electrodes want refurbished after 10 years daily cycling. Weight 240kgs, 90kg dry. Specs on redflow website.
I've seen these units. My comments relate only to the Redflow design. There are several problems with the design as it is now. First I did not see any method of automatically neutralizing spills of bromine when it's in it's charged state. It's extremely toxic just like chlorine, and due to the density and purity of the charged electrolyte it should have double spill containment and neutralizing agent packed between the double walls, something like sodium thiosulfate. The plumbing should be simplified and the overall design is more a conglomeration of off the shelf parts than a well thought out overall package. I'm not trying to totally crap on Redflow, but they've been around long enough to be using their own plastic moldings with steel cage exterior. If this unit was struck with a forklift or automobile there is a very real possibility to release large quantities of fuming bromine, in turn releasing huge quantities of bromine gas. If this happens on a windless day or enclosed space there could easily be a disaster.
Another improvement would be adjustable tankage so that KWh could be added without having to add an entire unit unless current capacity is also needed.
Flow batteries are really interesting and the cost per KWh promises a bright future, but there are some questions that need to be answered about safety and longevity.
The way their spokesperson treated a bromine spill as nothing to be worried about doesn't give me a lot of hope that they will implement many if any safety features, it seems like they expect spills to happen but don't have a good cleanup/containment plan short of sealing off the area and letting it vaporize. If they expect their products to be a viable alternative to lithium battery storage they need to have a much more robust plan in place, as I'm willing to bet most people would rather have the risk of a battery fire than a toxic chemical spill near to where they live.
@@trevdawg94 I saw that too, but he's dead wrong about bromine. Depending on the charge state of the electrolyte it's either basically a mildly acidic solution that's pretty safe when discharged, or it's a deep red fluid that's charged and the zinc has been removed from the bromine and the bromine will fume. Bromine is one of the nastier things you can work with in a lab. It leaves nasty festering burns on skin, and it will do the same for your lungs as it boils off at room temp.
It's not a true `flow battery', as said in the video, when charged the battery contain 9Kg of zinc, which means that the capacity is limited by the size of the battery itself and external tanks won't change anything.
@@AltMarc Adding tanks will add kwh unless they are already working at capacity when the plates are completely zinc plated. The zinc is pulled from solution and plated onto the plates, the limiting factor is the distance between the plating and short circuit.
Whenever you talk about (rechargable) batteries, could you please mention coulomb efficiency and the estimated number of usefull cycles (until the battery is down to 80% of its capacity). That would be great! Just to be able to put it into relation to other battery technologies. Thanks a lot!
In the case of Redflow battery (and I assume other types of flow batteries?) the Redflow battery retains 100% of its initial capacity throughout its life.
(Correction - after actually reading the spec sheet it states capacity loss of .5% per year (5% over 10 year warranty life).
One of the great features of these flow batteries is that, with maintenance, they retain virtually their entire capacity over their long lifetime. Far superior to Li-ion in that regard.
@@sophrapsune what kind of maintenance is needed to retain their entire capacity?
Because with "maintenance" you can also keep Li-ion battery banks at 100%.... by replacing the cells.
@@Jehty_ They have a self-maintaining discharge cycle that helps maintain electrode performance. The battery is offline for that period, so a system requires multiple battery units to stay online continuously. I believe there is also a deep maintenance cycle, which might include electrolyte top-up but I’m not sure what else. Finally, as the battery life is so long, some components such as pumps might fail and require replacement during the battery life. I’m not sure how rare failures are.
I've watched the first Fully Charged show on Redflow a dozen times. I got panels and batteries in my house 2 years ago and wish I could have had these batteries instead of LiOn. I shared the video with the installer company and they loved it. If they ever start selling residential units in the US I will be very interested.
Same, why is it taking so long!
Great video on the science, tech, solution availability and toxicity of the battery. Lots of good information.
But would have loved info on cost and kw density (yes dependent on tank size). Would have loved to know the cost and capacity of that battery unit in the office.
The Reflow battery is what is called a Hybrid Flow Battery. Unlike other types of flow battery, you can't just increase the volume of electrolyte to increase the battery capacity. There is a direct relationship between the volume of electrolyte and the capacity of the electrode plates to accept metallic zinc from the electrolyte. If you wanted to double the capacity, you would need to double the capacity of the electrode stack (or add another one - the earllier Gen 2.5 battery had two 5 kWh electrode stacks in the one battery). More importantly, it would double the size and weight of the battery, making it much more difficult to transport. I guess Redflow consider the current size as a good tradeoff between storage capacity and the logistics of transport.
@@dyemanoz interesting, I missed that, but totally makes sense. Interesting trade off, increasing electrolyte storage is a great advantage of flow batteries. But having two electrons to give thus doubling capacity, is the trade off. Thanks for explaining.
Cost seems to be roughly AU $13k (USD 8,500) according to various web searches for the 3 kW / 10 kWh unit. So more expensive than lithium at the moment, but it does claim to have less degradation over its lifespan so in theory it should have a usable capacity for much longer than the 10 year warranty.
Glad he covered the main material supply question on do we have enough zinc and bromine
To optimize its performance, the battery must be completely discharged periodically as a self- maintenance requirement to maximize the surface area of the battery electrode surfaces. The battery automatically engages this ‘electrode scrubbing’ operation on a periodic basis if the battery has not been recently discharged to a zero state of charge during normal operations. The overall system design needs to accommodate this typical flow battery characteristic.
Is it five years already since your last video on this? In the time since, I've wondered what happened to the battery tech they were testing and developing at the time. It never seemed to get mentioned again. So good to get an update and see how far they've developed it into products. Looks like it has massive potential for things bigger than vehicles.
The mainstream media should cover more of this kind of stuff and less of the politics.
@@toby9999 There are already enough headlines for non-technical people to read about the next big battery (or hydrogen?) breakthrough. There should be less of that, because most of it is not reaching the market or will take years.
These redflow batteries are being made, so they are not fantasy, but they are still a huge amount time away from something useful, meaning that the price needs to come waaay down.
You mean the vanadium flow battery ?..Also Australian ! I`ve no idea what happened . I thought there was some reasonably large scale test devices as its quite old tech .
Here in the UK, in the winter when there is no sun and no wind we need storage that can supply at least 1,000 GWh per day for possibly several weeks. The storage requirement is gigantic and currently the technology is nowhere near being able to do it.
We have baseload generating capacity going to waste at periods of low use (mostly overnight). The more nuclear (and wind power) we commission, the more spare overnight capacity we will have. Even 8 hours of reserve would save a lot of fossil fuel use
UK has more wind and bigger tides than anywhere in Europe.
Harness tidal flow and you have a guaranteed regular energy source for the next billion years.
When isn't it windy off the coast of the UK in winter? Those few days are precisely what batteries are for.
Modern wind turbines don't actually need much wind speed.
@@gohumberto And on top of that there are already some power connections between the UK and European countries.
These can and will be extended in the future. That will also lower the need for battery storage.
Been waiting for a follow up on Red Flow since I saw the first video, hope they come to the UK!
No deliveries to UK?
@@grahameroberts8109 There was a test system provided to one of the UK Universities (Swansea?), but no commercial deliveries.
They are/were only looking at commercial applications due to the ongoing maintenance of the pumps etc.
Have a look at Gelion batteries as an AGM version of this system. They have started small scale production in Aus. Finding out anymore is akin to banging your head against a brick wall.
Fantastic! May they pump as many out as fast as possible
😃I see what you did there!
Really interesting video Bobby
Great to see progress here as well! Interesting how every part of our technology from computing, to energy production to AI are undergoing incredible revolutions at the moment. Exiting times are ahead of us!
AND FUNNY HOW IT ALL STARTED NOW BASICALLY CAUSE OF ONE MAN. WHO INSISTED ON MAKING A PROFIT FROM IT!
All types of Electricity storage will be needed to back up Renewable Sourced Electricity!
And ideally ones that don't use materials that are difficult to source like cobalt, platinum, rhodium, etc. There was a big breakthrough in hydrogen electrolysis from seawater recently, but getting that energy back out with any useful efficiency requires fuel cells full of platinum. A ton of batteries require cobalt as a cathode, and that's all being mined with slave labor from the Congo.
So far, this red flow battery shows incredible promise with the materials being used. Zinc, bromine, electrolyte, that's all fantastic. My biggest worry is the HDPE. The whole battery is basically a brick of plastic sheets. HDPE is normally a form of plastic that can be recycled, but I don't know if it can be recycled after doping it with carbon and soaked it in electrolytes for years. If it's not re-usable, then it's not really the kind of electricity storage that I would want to see scaled up too much. It'll be a nightmare for the landfills as these batteries get replaced by the hundreds of thousands, all around the world.
We're already kinda seeing a taste of how bad the mess can be as we look at the decommissioning of wind turbine blades. At least there's research being done to come up with composite resins that can be broken down (and apparently turned into... gummy bears??) but for now we're being inundated with a tsunami of waste plastic from these things and not enough care is being put into their re-use.
The only grid-scale battery concept I can think of currently that doesn't have material sustainability issues (outside of pumped hydro, which has its geographic limitations) is rechargeable molten salt batteries. The problem with those is that they're still knee-deep in R&D and research teams keep coming up with newer, better alloys to use as electrolytes. So it's hard for them to reach a stopping point where it's time to, ya know, just start making batteries. So this is not likely to become a thing for ten years or so.
Still, boy howdy is it nice to see all the dozens of new battery ideas popping up all around the world. One of them is gonna be the winner.
@@pirojfmifhghek566 good points. There is compressed CO2 that uses a plasticized "bladder" to hold the CO2 that is compressed then released. I think it is 75% efficient which is not too shaby and does not need mined resources?? All have to be better than burning Gas!!
Very interesting! Thank you!
I was wondering how longterm stable the "hybernation mode" is, really? How much more stable is Zinc Bromine in comparison to all the Vanadium based RedoxFlow batteries? I know they had their discharge issues a couple years back.
What's the key starts? Life time charge cycles? Charge and discharging rate?
How incredibly clever!
Good news. Thanks.
Its been a few years since Ive heard about redflow, glad they're still kickin. Wish flow batteries would start taking off faster.
Oh wait he just said the thing about them struggling at
With the guy you had on a few weeks ago, talking about how you only need 3 hours of storage to make the RE Grid work, this is great way to store hours of energy cheaply and easily.
I seem to remember him quoting a figure of three days but with a flow battery that hardly matters - you just need a bigger tank.
100%re with just a bit of storage is really silly.
Looks like the first "clean - non poisonus" battery technology I have found. And I found a LOT of "new technology" batteries. Well done! Crank them out!!
Well Bromine is a rather nasty chemical. I wonder if the other chemicals in the soup make it more palatable. The exposure to Bromine immediately dangerous to life and health is 3 ppm. That’s why it’s transported in steel vessels lined with lead. The Bromide ion is less harmful, ingestion of 0,5 to 1 gram daily would cause bromism.
Of course , one could argue batteries are not ment to be for eaten, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone came up with a battery that used chemicals that are even less toxic ?
15°C (59°F) is a huge limitation unless I heard wrong and it’s -15°C (5°F). In constantly warm climates this obviously isn’t a problem, however much of the world gets much colder than that and it would waste quite a bit of energy to heat them that much.
This makes a lot of sense. Use these batteries for grid scale and use lithium for cars.
And let’s stop using lithium in countless stupid pointless objects (e.g. earphones, fitbits, Apple Watches, etc), or objects that by definition don’t need lithium batteries (e.g bicycles).
@@Nikoo033 What else can replace Li-Ions in those applications?
@@em0_tion I was mainly implying that those things don’t really need, in truth, to be battery powered. But I think that since they don’t need much power, there is a chance that in time sodium batteries could be used for those applications in the future. 👍🏻
@@Nikoo033 Weight is definitely an issue for e-bikes when they are being used as a car replacement. Would rather see a sub 1kWh bike than a 60kWh car. If they can get the technology lithium free then even better.
I wish i worked making batteries so cool
Sounds to be a very worthwhile battery development to fulfill static energy storage. Bottom line is cost and ability to produce them.
It's fantastic how much truly amazing electric tech is coming out of Australia!
The Aussies are really trying hard.
Very cool.
i think that in a standard container format you can also deliver energy to a remote location and then build up a roof of solar cells and you have a sustainable kind of power plant set up in a few hours.
i don't know the cost structure of that but the interesting aspect is scaling up energy while maximum power does not need to go up. if you can supply 20kW max., you could scale the energy from about 20kWh to 500kWh without adding any plates, just the tank with the liquid stuff.
that makes it interesting for long term storage far beyond 20h of a typical home storage battery.
i guess this is the area where that concept can shine also when it comes to costs.
Australia's Redflow is brilliant.
This will confuse your UK audience. A South African in Brisbane.
Love your work 👍
Amazing!
Best way to store energy is Uranium pellet or Thorium salt. With few hundred of kilograms of such "battery" you can provide GW of power and TWh of energy for 1,5 years.
Let’s hope they are limitlessly busy. Sounds like a lot of great tech there
Great video. Would be good for grid scale and home backup power.
They haven't quite got the reliability for home backup power (but they will get there), but for gridscale where a few bad batteries in 10,000 they are already a great option.
Robert, good interview but you really should have challenged him on building more manufacturing plants around the world to cope with supply. Partnering up to deliver for the world is what we need. 😀👍
By the time these reach the UK they are more expensive than Li-ion.
Partnering up is what gives rise to Globalism. Keep it in house.
@@lagunafishingnothing wrong with working together to meet a common goal
I think it goes without saying this will be a global effort, hopefully distinctly non-Chinese. Just wait for Redflow to establish where it's long term markets are...
Exiting development especially if lithium isn’t being used in these batteries and also non flammable,sounds perfect
You can make these batteries yourself too for off grid, you just would have to keep it in its own outbuilding with ventilation and hopefully filtration because if over charged it will off gas very small amounts of bromine gas.
mmm ... nice ...
Elemental bromine is quite toxic, will cause chemical burns and severe lung irritation at as little as 3ppm. If there was a chance of venting it would be essential that it vents outdoors where it could quickly dissipate.
Was excited until I heard that it needs to stay above +15 degrees. That's only 3 months of the year reliably in Saskatchewan and most of Canada.
Why not use pumped storage hydropower if you need super long lasting energy storage.
I really like that all component are common and NOT a rare earth material. This makes temperature and size the only major concerns. I am assuming the cost of these batteries will be economical or better. A 10K Amp hour battery at 24 volts is pretty impressive. They did not state the charge and discharge rates though.
What if in new construction, that you put in a 1mWh flow battery or maybe even a 500kWh that feeds the house directly and let utilities then balance the load. If small scale does not work, about a distribution set up for new communities where 10-20 houses share a battery and the benefits. If each house has solar that can feed back into the battery many people could benefit.
Regardless of the battery type you use, this is not very efficient use of batteries and material.
Any battery system from 5 to 15kWh has the most impact in a house, it increases self consumption up to 70%
Past that point, you might be able to go complete selfsufficient with 1MWh, but you will just be draining it once a year. So an astoundingly low battery cycle rate of once per year, which a lot of battery tech can do.
This will never be economical, regardless of which battery tech is used.
And by the way, in most houses a 500kWh battery would just delay the month a bit, in which the house is no longer able to support its own energy. This is talking from a perspective of a house in UK / Netherlands / Germany for example.
In sunnier places (like Australia) you probably don't need a 500kWh at all.
@@roland9367 you said "increases self consumption up to 70%"
Up from where? What would be the self consumption % without a battery?
@@Jehty_ People with solar and no batteries typically only consume a third of the solar energy when it is generated. So self consumption of around 30% but it could be as low as 20% if you have a lot of solar and you are also not home a lot.
So a small battery already makes a big change in that.
I like the use of irn bru
I'm going to sound negative, but this tech is literally 144 years old. Why wasn't it commercialized back then and still not widespread mainstream today? Stuff like this, in theory, would be great for grid and home energy storage, but we can't even buy one for our home and only available for invest. What's holding it back anyway?
You see when you see new tech like this I’m thinking I want one! Currently have a 10KWh lipo battery. However, when you attempt to buy one you can’t especially here in the UK!
Good on the Ausis for doing this. Cost and kw density?
am soooo happy you didnt ask any critical questions !
3:43 You call it Zinc Bromine Electrolyte with "a few other things" but we can tell it's really Irn Bru.
Still no one better at this than Bobby by a long way - get him on the main channel more please
how powerful is that heating pad and how efficient is it? here in the northeastern US we only get temps above 15c (~60f) about half of the year, and 4 months of the year we have temps below 5c (~40f). There are much colder areas of the US alone, plus Scandinavian countries and Canada.
Hybrid storage is the eventual sweet spot I think. I have a Li-Ion battery at home which does me proud most days, but if it could be paired with 2-4X the capacity flow battery for days worth of storage, at a good price, then I'd get so much more value out of my panels. Li-Ion makes sense between the panels and the inverter. A slower response battery makes sense between the inverter and the grid in a sense.
Edit: I take that back. You should charge Li-Ion from these, while the solar panels charge the flow battery. Draw from the li-Ion.
I hope you are enjoying your trip to Australia Robert. You really are missing out if you don't come across to Perth and experience our superior weather. 😉
What price and when? In comparison to Tesla MegaPack 4GWh for $2 Million, the current production rate at Lathrop 12 packs a day increase to >24 by end of the year. ROI about 2 to 3 years according to the Hornsdale project.
I'm just curious how they make sure that no elemental bromine ever forms within the battery or in case of an accident or fire. Elemental bromine is HIGHLY toxic for humans and pretty much every form of life. He was talking about bromine a lot but I'm almost certain he meant bromine compounds.
I would love to get two 10kWh redflow batteries for my house but they aren't available in New Zealand, here right beside Australia and I can't get an answer on how much they will cost if they are ever available. I also can't get hard information on the Gelion batteries that also use ZnBr technology but have a very similar architecture to lead acid batteries. Are these batteries less expensive per kWh stored than Li batteries. Size is of no concern for static applications. It is all about cost and longevity.
I would put the electrolyte under Gravity Pressure (Raised weight Hydraulic Accumulator Towers or Shaft Wells) same 1883 tech the London Hydraulic Power Company used) You Only need power to pump it in And to Charge it Psi can alter the viscosity and Working temp range
So what I hear you saying is, without additional heating in a building, this might not be a long term storage solution for Canadian winters.
Otherwise, interesting tech.
There is often plenty of low grade waste heat in industrial areas, the trick is to use that. However would hydro storage be better in Canada?
It sure can be, if you store it underground. Sure, some added price, but still is better to capture summers sun, or winters wind, then burning coal and oil.
@@Muppetkeeper Not here on the prairies.
they got to be quick. as lithium prices are going down, despite increasing demand, i'm sensing that sodium ion batteries are going to take over energy storage in a few years.
Well car owners are used to vehicles with fuel tanks that don’t wear out. The cost of replacing a EV’s battery set can often cancel out the savings on fuel costs.
7:20 So what happens when the battery exceeds 50 Celsius? Also if your outside temp is 35 degrees C how does tat effect the battery performance?
Do they really use minimal energy in standby mode? I thought these batteries had to keep the fluid moving. If the temp does go down below 15C and the fluid thickens - does the whole unit have to be warmed? Here in the UK they're aiming on making the narrowboats on the canals electric but currently there isn't a realistic way of doing this. I know it's a small market but a 20KWh battery would work well, especially if it could be slowly recharged by solar. Would the batteries survive the small knocks that happen in boat life?
Nice. Bromine is cheap, it's not as easy or cheap to extract from "normal" seawater as from dead sea, or some other places, but it can be done. Not needing the same "special" elements as lithium ion batteries, is an advantage, for both technologies.
The low temperature issue shouldn't have to matter much in large systems, with 15 kg of electrolyte per kWh of capacity means big systems with many units will have huge combined heat capacity. A maximum DC-DC efficiency maximum of 80% means 20% or more of the energy turns into heat in the batteries. That heat can be enough, combined with some insulation in colder climates to keep the systems warm enough. Obviously assuming some daily charge/discharge, but that's what grid storage batteries are really good for. Technically possible to use them for seasonal storage sure, a lot battery technologies can be used for that, but it becomes absurdly expensive per unit of energy out from the system. That's why the guy from redflow talked about 4-8 hours primarily.
A battery being limited to an absolute max of 0.5 C peak, delivering at a rate equivalent to half it's capacity per hour, is never an actual advantage, neither having a rather small window of power output where it has it's highest efficiency, those are quite severe drawbacks, but undeniably acceptable drawbacks if the cost per unit of energy storage capacity is much lower.
There are also disadvantages to having to pump a liquid, compared to "conventional" batteries, this system needs to become significantly cheaper per unit of capacity compared to lithium batteries to stay relevant. I don't se any ovbious reason to why that should be impossible to achieve.
Also, I see some commenters assuming that you just have to use bigger electrolyte tanks, or add more tanks to increase capacity indefinitely, it doesn't work that way, the plates have limited capacity. It would definitely be possible to make systems a little bit cheaper per kWh capacity by increasing just electrolyte tanks and plates, but their system is already a 240 kg system with a maximum of 3 kW continuous output. It's easier to reach efficient production of one system design, than with a lot of designs.
There are flow batteries where you can increase the amount of electrolyte to increase the capacity, theoretically indefinitely, but I'm sure redflow have chosen this particular "hybrid technology" for very good reasons.
Erik, you are the only person to comment and answer the question about heat output derived from the manufacture of plating and de-plating the stack of plates. You are correct, I have two of these batteries at 38º latitude and close to sea level, so a temperate climate. Our ambient temperature range is around zero degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius. The way the interview went there is a misconception on the ability of these flow batteries ability to work in sub optimal temperatures.
Our batteries are outside in the weather, in the summertime they have the afternoon sun on them and over the last 3½ years they have endured and continued working in ambient temperatures of 47.8ºC in full sun. At the same time they have worked perfectly well down to approximately 0.5ºC in our winter. The batteries have a cooling fan, which is a variable speed unit that ratchets up and down as and when required, the fan in general keeps the battery operating somewhere around optimal temperature.
In the hotter times, the batteries slowly heat up on a hot day (over 45ºC) the cooling fans do keep the temperatures below the ambient, but not by too much. In the colder times, when the ambient temperature drops, the batteries are generally running around 20ºC or thereabouts when the ambient is somewhere between 1ºC to 15ºC. Last night our ambient was down to 11ºC and the battery temperature of the one I checked was 25.1ºC. I understand that the energy loss in the form of heat, (which is one way to put it) is around 1000W at it's peak. The only time I have seen a battery struggle in cold weather was when the battery was shut down for some maintenance and it was restarted with an ambient of around 5ºC. It took quite a while (few hours I seem to remember) before it was running at normal operating temperature.
The maintenance cycles are scheduled (in the BMS software options) at every 24h, 48h or 72h. During a maintenance cycle the battery discharges itself to zero charge capacity. It can do this by various means, we have two batteries, our discharge/maintenance cycles are designed to coincide with sunrise. In other words, the maintenance cycle is designed to be finished shortly after sunrise, meaning the fresh battery is ready to take any excess to the house requirements rooftop solar. The maintenance cycle is the key to the longevity of these batteries, at the end of a maintenance cycle, one is starting with (virtually) a brand new battery. In our situation, our current maintenance cycle is every 48 hours, meaning that this morning one battery is virtually brand new, the other battery is 1½ days old and will be rejuvenated shortly after sunrise tomorrow.
During the discharge cycle, if the house is using power, that battery supplies the house. If the house requirements are quite low, then the excess power is delivered to the other battery, or batteries if there are more than two. Essentially once energy is stored in the system, it is kept in storage until you desire to use it. If you are really using low power, then the maintenance cycle takes longer, or you can discharge to the grid if that option is there for you.
In short they are a brilliant battery, no worries at all about fire issues and their operating range is effectively from 1% SOC through to 100% SOC. They can give around 5000W and my experience is that they will do this for somewhere around 5 minutes then as things progress the output gradually lowers. Having two batteries is the minimum if you wish to have 24/7 battery power. We have two Victron inverters capable of 5000W output each for a possible 10,000W output. During testing after initial installation, we had around 5% SOC and we pulled around 8,500W by turning anything and everything in the house on at once. In practice, the house rarely requires much more that 5000W which is usually the oven, a microwave and a couple of heat pumps either heating or cooling the house. In general the house has a constant consumption somewhere between 150W to 500W.
Our house battery system has been designed to service the entire house, in other words the batteries supply everything when the sun isn't shining. When the sun is shining the rooftop powers the house, excess goes to the batteries, excess from the battery requirements is exported to the grid. If the grid goes down, and it has a few times, we can continue as if nothing has happened, which is good and bad. Good because nothing shuts down or stops working, bad because we don't know that the grid has shut down.
I use an electric arc welder in the garage, 3 phase woodturning lathe and anything else I wish to use, while at the same time the house is still running perfectly fine. In the summertime, we are effectively 100% self sufficient from mid October to the end of March as the shorter days and lower angle of the sun happens. On top of that we changed our HWS from gas storage to heat pump storage (Sanden) all this from 7.7kW photo voltaic on our roof tops.
@@allanhugh2044 You seem to really like those batteries! A few reflections, I don't know for sure, but I suspect the temperature limits are at least in part to minimize degradation, especially the upper limit. A plain fan can not decrease the temperature below true ambient, fans can cool us down even if ambient temperature is higher because we have built in evaporative cooling, aka sweat.
Anyhow, the huge mass is enough to reduce temperature extremes of the battery itself significantly, it takes a lot of energy to heat up so much mass from "normal" nighttime temperatures to too high for those batteries.