Could a vanadium redox flow battery solve storage problems?

A type of battery invented by an Australian professor in the 1980s has been growing in prominence, and is now being touted as part of the solution to this storage problem. Called a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), it's cheaper, safer and longer-lasting than lithium-ion cells.

Where is the world's biggest lithium-vanadium hybrid battery storage plant?

A special energy storage entry in the popular PV Tech Power regular ‘Project Briefing’ series: Energy-Storage.news writer Cameron Murray takes a close look at Energy Superhub Oxford in the UK, which features the world’s biggest lithium-vanadium hybrid battery storage plant.

Why is vanadium more expensive than lithium?

And although vanadium is more abundant than lithium, it's expensive to extract. Most of the world's supply is used in refining steel, so its price tends to be volatile, increasing in response to demand for steel. As a result, vanadium batteries currently have a higher upfront cost than lithium-ion batteries with the same capacity.

Is lithium-ion the future of grid energy storage?

And so, almost by default, lithium-ion became the technology of choice for grid energy storage. Now, however, that's begun to change. When a commercial district in Trondheim, Norway, recently commissioned battery energy storage, it made an unusual choice. Instead of ordering lithium-ion, it went with VRFB.