Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

westbranch · January 2012

a Canadian co. called American Vanadium is developing a new battery concept called VFB, the Vanadium Flow Battery. they were on the local news this evening, calling it the next best thing to sliced bread... they may be right with a 30 year design life..
http://www.americanvanadium.com/vanadium-flow-batteries.php

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

Flow batteries are not the latest thing. There is a company in Brisbane Australia already making one for off grid and on grid for smoothing out power supply during peak demands,
The battery only needs the fluids replacing ever 10 years, from my understanding of it. Its at present manufactured in a 25kw size

niel · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

i don't see any battery voltages mentioned so does anybody know what voltages they have per cell?

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

Sorry Niel if this sounds vague. but they dont have invidual cells as such. they just seem to have electrodes in a container and the seperate fluids flow(pumped) over them. The electrodes eventually (wear?) away and need replacing same as the 2 fluids.I dont know what the actual voltage is, All I understand is the base model is 25kw, To be honest its about all I can add. mabe someone else with more knowledge than me about them can add to this??
Here is the Australian web site for the manufacturer.. mabe you can understand it better than me, http://www.redflow.com.au/

westbranch · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

here is a link for a 7 Kw install, not much detail, if you look at some of their other pages you will see a larger unit 25 Kw? that needs a pretty big building
http://www.pdenergy.com/products_kwunits.html

westbranch · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

more: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/dnnl-utv031711.php

Cariboocoot · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

If you have a look at this thread: http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?10712-solar-energy-storage&highlight=vanadium
You'll see that the company involved actually is/was a forum member. However, like so many "breakthrough" technologies nothing has really developed yet.

Until it reaches the practical retail stage it's nothing to get excited about.

niel · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

it seems i posed a slew of questions then that did not get answered.

johnp,
i'm quite confused why when delving into one of the systems that it listed a 48v lead acid battery as an option. why offer lead acid batteries as an option if you have a great battery to begin with that still seems to be shrouded in secrecy on it's specs?
http://www.redflow.com.au/apps_raps_600_specs

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

Niel thats why I told you even though that company is less than 30k from where I live and they had a rep give us a talk at work about their product we still knew not much.
But I do know this for fact it is in production and is been used by one of the bigest electricity retailers in areas where they have found it more cost efective than upgrading the substation and the distribution from it to provide the aditional power during peak periods. They have also done some installs of the 25kw pack at residences for same reason. This is the area they hope to make the money.

Yes its also puzzled me why you would offer an obsolete lead acid battery system along side an advanced system.

What you will notice about the 25kw package is its relatively compact and its complete in every detail,, And I might add very well costructed.

westbranch · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

John, Niel, see the description on page 3 of how it all works, gives a bit of clarity, 75% efficient overall they claim
http://www.redflow.com.au/Files/assessment__zinc_bromine_battery.pdf

niel · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

ok it's 1.8v. now we don't know if it slides in voltage much like other batteries do between low soc and high soc? how about capacities and physical sizes too? i'm not going to look through that whole thing to find those answers if they are there, but at 1.8v it would seem to need to be 7 cells for 12.6vdc and seems doable. as to 75% efficiency that does not compare well for my agms are far more efficient than that. cost comparisons are also a factor as we don't know how much they are charging per ah? it may be a good product, but good products usually are more forthcoming with information than these seem to be so i'll stay skeptical until shown otherwise.

johnp,
if you find the opportunity some time down the road for testing these batteries, i'm sure the world would love the opinion.

boB · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

So, where can I buy one and how much do they cost ?? How long does it take to get one ?
Off grid house size.
boB

Volvo Farmer · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

Perhaps this thread would be better classified in the skeptics, hype and scams heading, since nobody seems to be able to get their hands on one to review it.

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

VOLVO FARMER you are totally wrong they are in actual use ,I know that for a fact with the second largest electricity distributor at substations for sommthing out peak loads.in Queensland, a state of about 3million.
They also have installed some at individual residences for extra power during peak peroids,
the item is not yet available for sale but is leased , There is a perfectly good reason for this as the whole device(battery and its electronice) is still new this gives the manufacturer a chance to do software or hardware upgrades as necessary easier than if they are sold and the placement is unknown.
The 25kw device is all in a box about 3ft 6 x3ft 6 x3,6.. weight about 400lbs if i remember correctly, How the battery charges or discharges and its vlotage is not really relevant to anything as the battery is not sold as an item, it needs and has all the electronics built with it. its a turn key package,

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

I have seen a device in a working situation, but I did have trouble getting much info from them, they had a speaker vist my workplace to tell us about it but they didnt say much as I think they realized we would not be findiing many uses for them , And they found out my job is mostly to test things to and past their limit made them reluctant to go much further with our department.,

westbranch · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

Niel, maybe we should change the topic to just FLOW BATTERIES as there are 2 versions , thread started as Vanadium and switched to Zinc-Bromine with the input from John...

so, back to the link I posted, http://www.redflow.com.au/Files/asse...ne_battery.pdf. though there is not much one can dig into , it does provide some insights.
There are some pictures of the unit and form the text it sounds like a 'units' capacity can be expanded by simply adding more 'cells ' or 'plates' to the base unit. However there is little meat to digest.
the report does state that they are concentrating on a 5kw/10kwh unit , Home based units? page 5 as the basic building block.
there are a couple of graphs of charge/discharge cycles.

hth

john p · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

sorry Ididnt mean to get off the vanadium one, it was accidental as I didnt read th forst post as wellas Ishould have and just took the name Vanadium as part of only a company name and not taking it to mean thats all they made,
The base unit they make now is 25kw, They do seen to be manufacturing a smaller version later,The problem seems to be its costs very little less to make a 10kw one than a 25kw one,

westbranch · January 2012

Re: Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

yes, a tad too big for most of us PV types. the Redflow one is more to a PV type installation size at 5 Kw.

John, no problem as I was not aware there was a type called FLOW. your redflow is most interesting, especially as it in ,or almost in, commercial production.

Vanadium Flow Battery - the answer to PV batteries?

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