- Invinity Energy Systems and Elemental Energy plan to deploy an 8.4MWh vanadium redox flow battery for a solar PV project.
- Vanadium flow batteries are suitable for large scale industrial power projects.
Canada-based redox flow battery manufacturer Invinity Energy Systems and Canadian renewable energy developer Elemental Energy plan to construct a 21MW solar plant connected to an 8.4MWh vanadium redox flow battery at Chappice Lake in Alberta province. According to Invinity, “the solar array will be coupled directly with the vanadium flow battery, improving plant efficiency, operating flexibility and costs.” “Compared with more common lithium-ion batteries, Invinity’s VFBs are a safer form of longer-duration, utility-grade energy storage, offering excellent operational longevity in ultra-heavy duty use while being fully recyclable at end of life,” the company added.
Invinity CCO Matt Harper had this to say about the project “Clean energy on demand is becoming an increasingly valuable commodity; in delivering solar and storage together at Chappice Lake, we will prove that solar generation plus Invinity’s utility-grade vanadium flow batteries can make Alberta a powerhouse for the North American grid.”
Vanadium flow batteries offer heavy-duty energy storage and are used for industrial-scale solar PV generation, especially in distributed low-emissions energy projects. The batteries store energy in a non-flammable, liquid electrolyte and do not degrade with increasing cycles like lithium-ion batteries. They are also very flexible and can be scaled easily.