Long-life battery system stores electrical energy in liquid form
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An Irish company has developed a long-life battery that stores electrical energy in liquid form.
Red-T, the company behind the flow battery technology, said that its battery can store energy for much longer than conventional batteries and could potentially provide electricity for people in remote locations.
Similarly, the company said that its vanadium redox batteries can store energy from renewable sources and distribute it to the grid whenever it is needed.
The battery range relies on a vanadium electrolyte to transport electrons through the battery cell.
John Ward, chief executive officer of Red-T, explained to the The Engineer that vanadium is ideal because its unique valences make it very stable.
He said: ‘Batteries such as the lithium-ion battery seen in electric cars can charge/discharge around 1,500 times. After this, they degrade very quickly and then they cannot be reused. They are also not great with partial charges.
‘Our system does not degrade at all, so you can charge/discharge it around 10,000 times.’
According to Ward, this makes Red-T’s battery system ideally suited to delivering electricity in off-grid areas where, for example, solar power is available.
‘For a 5kW continuous load, you would install around 30kW of PV [photovoltaic] panels and around 10kW x 10 hours of the Red-T system, giving 100kWh storage capacity,’ he said.
Ward added that, by day, the system would deliver 5kW to the load source and charge the battery.
‘Once the sun sets, you would then draw off the Red-T system for your power requirements,’ he said. ‘So, for this system, you would have a completely standalone power system off grid. At one cycle day, the battery would have 365 charges a year, so it would last for 18 years.’
The AIB Seed Capital Fund recently led a €900,000 (£756,000) investment in Red-T, which has research and development facilities in Reading.
Readers' comments (3)
kier mizuik | 23 Jan 2012 5:06 pm
i would like to know how long the battery could last , hold it charge before discharging , and if it was affected by cold or heat .
if it would require cooling or heating or use power in ventilation of any off gasses mechanically while charging or discharging .
could this battery be portable , like a lead acid car battery or could it be even smaller or lighter than what we mite already see in a flash light battery.
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Graham Field | 24 Jan 2012 3:08 pm
Kier - see http://poweringnow.com/ for further details.
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Jose Araujo | 28 Jan 2012 5:30 pm
The Flow BAtteries or Vanadium Redox BAtteries developped a few years ago from a Canadian company -VRB Power from Canada has introduced in Ireland in a 38 MW Wind Farm project at Sorne Hill but I have never heard about the results .Meanwhile I know that the VRB Power has been sold to a Chinese company named Prudent Energy Inc.. Is Red T repeating the receipe ?
I wish you luck!
Regards
José Garcia Araújo
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