Energy storage fresh air direction - vanadium battery

Many companies layout vanadium battery industry chain

Vanadium battery, fully known as full vanadium redox flow battery, is a kind of redox battery with active substances in the circulating flow liquid state, and is currently commercially mature.

Experts said that vanadium battery has the advantages of high stability, long cycle life, strong scalability, etc., suitable for long-term energy storage projects of more than 8 hours, which can be widely used in renewable energy grid-connected power generation, urban grid energy storage, remote power supply, UPS systems like application of lithium battery and other fields.

On July 8, CNNC Huayuan Titanium Dioxide announced that the company and V-LiQuid signed a relevant strategic cooperation agreement, the two sides will carry out comprehensive and in-depth cooperation around the whole industry chain of all-vanadium flow battery energy storage, and make positive contributions to the realization of the “double carbon” goal.

The relevant person in charge told reporters that the two sides will set up two joint venture companies with their respective advantages, one is mainly engaged in the manufacture of all-vanadium flow battery energy storage system, new energy and energy storage power station investment, development and operation, and the other is mainly engaged in vanadium electrolyte manufacturing and vanadium mineral resource exploration and mining.

As a resource leading enterprise in the upstream of the vanadium battery industry chain, Pangang Group Steel Vanadium and Titanium has recently been popular with funds because of the concept of vanadium battery.

According to the data, the production capacity of vanadium products reached 40,000 tons per year, ranking first in China and the world.

In September 2021, Pangang Group Steel Vanadium and Titanium announced that it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Dalian Bolong Holding Group.

According to the development status of the energy storage industry, the two sides discussed joint investment to build a vanadium electrolyte plant and gradually expand the scale of the vanadium battery industry.

Recently, many A-share listed companies with vanadium battery- related businesses have attracted investors attention.

Shanghai Electric Group said that the company is committed to the independent research and development of vanadium battery products, and it has successfully developed a typical product 5kW, 25kW and 50kW stack.

State Grid Yingda Group said that the company has landed related energy projects (including vanadium battery energy storage) in 2022, and it is currently promoting the preliminary work of other related energy storage projects.

Billions Chemicals said that the company’s battery materials research institute is currently conducting vanadium battery technology research and development, reserve related technologies, and will actively promote the industrialization of vanadium battery materials in the future.

In addition, Hyde signed a cooperation agreement with China Vanadium Energy Storage and China Science and Technology to jointly invest in the establishment of a company to promote the development of vanadium flow energy storage battery industry projects.

Vanadium battery has broad development prospects

A policy released by the Chinese government has also opened up space for the application of vanadium battery.

Experts said, vanadium battery is an important part of medium to large electrochemical battery storage power station, which can complement the energy storage of the power grid.

In the case of unbalanced power supply of new energy such as wind and solar, it is necessary to support energy storage equipment to improve energy supply. So chemical energy storage is a good technical supplement for distributed energy networks.

In June this year, the first national large-scale chemical energy storage demonstration project approved by the China Energy Administration, Dalian Liquid Flow Battery Energy Storage Peaking Power Station, is in the final stage of battery cell commissioning and system commissioning, which marks another big step forward in the industrialization process of China’s liquid energy storage technology.

Professionals said, China is rich in vanadium ore resources, proven vanadium ore reserves account for more than 40% of the world’s reserves, vanadium ore production accounts for more than 60% of the global output.

Rich resource reserves provide favorable conditions for the future development of vanadium battery industry.

Benefiting from the multiple advantages of resources, safety, environmental protection and policies, with the gradual landing of large-scale vanadium battery projects, the installed scale of all-vanadium flow battery will achieve leapfrog growth.

It is predicted that in 2025, China’s new operating electrochemical energy storage will be 11.4GW, of which vanadium flow batteries account for about 30%, and the installed capacity is about 3GW-4GW.

The application of vanadium batteries in the field of energy storage will usher in the first phase of the outbreak period.

Problems with vanadium battery-industrial scale and cost problems

In the capital market, a number of individual stocks involving vanadium batteries are sought after by funds.

The all-vanadium flow battery industry is in the transition stage from the introduction period to the growth stage.

On the one hand, the technical barriers on the battery end are high, on the other hand, raw material quality and price are the core factors restricting the production capacity of all-vanadium flow battery.

It is worth mentioning that although the long-term development prospects of vanadium battery industry are better, there is a bottleneck in the industry that needs to be broken through urgently, and at the same time, the short-term market speculation risk is also more prominent.

All-vanadium flow battery energy storage has not yet formed a scale effect in the application field.

Some experts pointed out that the biggest disadvantage of vanadium battery is that the initial installation cost is higher, which is more than 2 times that of lithium-ion battery.

The vanadium battery industry is currently in the process of shifting from the demonstration stage to commercialization, and it is expected that with the advancement of technology in the future, the cost will have a large room for decline.