With the recent announcement of Australia’s first Vanadium Flow Battery (VFB) project, discussions from last year’s 40th Anniversary Flow Battery Innovation Symposium at UNSW may soon become a reality.
A recent $150 million investment from Western Australia’s State Government is set to have implications for the future of energy storage in Australia. This announcement surrounds an Australian-first project focused on manufacturing a 50-megawatt vanadium flow battery (VFB) in Kalgoorlie to reinforce the Goldfields’ energy grid.
“In addition to the 150 local jobs created during construction, I want to work with industry to develop a local vanadium battery manufacturing industry here in Kalgoorlie,” said Western Australian premier, Roger Cook.
These plans come after a recent push for a sovereign VFB manufacturing industry as UNSW Sydney hosted the 40th Anniversary Flow Battery Innovation Symposium last year. The event celebrated four decades since the development of the first 1kW VFB by emeritus professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos and her team.
“The vanadium flow battery offers a unique solution to the energy storage needs of renewable sources like solar and wind,” said Skyllas-Kazacos.
The symposium brought together industry leaders and researchers who discussed how the nation can leverage its vanadium reserves to improve long-duration storage solutions and thus lead the global energy transition. Other key messages of the Symposium surrounded VFBs being:
• Unlimited and flexible in deployment.
• Ideal to use when temperatures are too high for lithium.
• Ideal for microgrid environment to replace lithium batteries and diesel generators.
• Supply chain constraints are the only limitations in Australia.
Why vanadium?
Since the first VFB was built at UNSW, the technology has grown internationally with its capacity evolving into a gigawatt hour scale. The scaling up of its capabilities internationally has seen it become a fitting solution to stabilise an energy grid in a future that is renewable energy driven.
VFBs first gained traction internationally due to their ability to provide safe, reliable, and long-duration energy storage in comparison to traditional lithium-based batteries, which are flammable, explosive, and limited in scalability.
“Unlike traditional batteries, flow batteries store energy in electrolyte solutions, allowing for flexible and scalable energy storage at lower costs for long-duration applications,” said Skyllas-Kazacos.
For Australia, this presents an economic opportunity to develop and manufacture these batteries on a global stage, due to its large vanadium reserves and sovereign renewable technology expertise.
“Australia is ideally placed to become a major manufacturer of flow batteries, both for domestic use and for the international market,” said Skyllas-Kazacos.
Resource extraction and the production of electrolytes and flow batteries is set to be a good opportunity for the Australian economy, as the nation holds a quarter of the world’s vanadium reserves. This potentially burgeoning industry has already gained attention from global players, such as Rio Tinto, a company that has plans to use VFBs for decarbonising operations in regions such as Iceland, South Africa, and Oman. Other global players such as Sumitomo Electric in Japan and Invinity Energy Systems’ deployment in South Australia have also showcased plans for VFB projects.
An Australian-first energy project
With last year’s symposium highlighting the worth of a sovereign VFB supply chain, early February saw a nation-leading announcement from WA’s State Government, when Cook unveiled a $150 million, Australian-made, 50-megawatt vanadium battery project.
“Strengthening and reinforcing the electricity system is my number one priority for the Goldfields,” he said.
Kalgoorlie MLA, Ali Kent, said the development is just another part of the State Government’s $130 million investment in measures to improve energy reliability in the area from 2021.
“Today’s commitment will add another layer of protection to the system, making sure there is another back up in place when the region experiences serious weather events or other disruptions to the system,” he said.
“I’m incredibly proud that Kalgoorlie-Boulder has been selected for this Australian-first project.”
Cook said the VFB – once operational – is set to provide back-up power for 10 hours when needed while potential disruptions or weather events hit the region.
The project originates from the WA Government’s recognition that Vanadium is expected to play an increasing role in batteries around the world. With the USA, Europe, South Korea and Japan all being potential markets for WA vanadium, the state has a unique opportunity to break into the industry. This opportunity originates as WA’s vanadium deposit being developed south of Meekatharra is one of the largest in the world.
Cook said that he wants this project to drive the emerging industry in WA so that the potential of new mining and local processing jobs, as well as export income, is realised.
“I want this project to be a catalyst to drive a new vanadium mining, processing and export industry for WA – to make more things here, diversify the economy and create the jobs of the future,” he said.
This system reinforcement is set to add to the WA Government’s work to replace West Kalgoorlie Power Station by 2026. The 50MW, 10-hour VFB is planned to be operational in 2029 and will be located near transmission infrastructure.
What’s next?
With this government backing and industry interest and expertise, Australia could be at the start of an advantageous vanadium battery journey. The Kalgoorlie project, alongside increasingly present industry commercialisation efforts, could see the industry develop into one that supports energy security, economic diversification and Australia’s position as a global leader in long-duration renewables storage.
While seeing whether these investments will be enough to cement this position of the Nation in the global picture remains to be seen – the momentum behind sovereign VFBs has started to pick up.
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