Transcript
I’m a Chemical Engineer and vanadium has always been a fascinating metal for me. Most of my career has been spent in the downstream refining of cobalt and nickel, both of which are important battery metals but the unique attributes of vanadium make it strongly suited for long duration batteries.
Vanadium is going to play a big role in the global energy transition.
Vanadium can exist in four oxidation states and it’s this oxidation states that act as a cathode and anode for vanadium flow batteries. Vanadium flow batteries are relatively safe because of the use of aqueous electrolyte, so it doesn’t have the inherent fire risk of lithium-ion batteries.
Overcharging a vanadium flow battery will not lead to a fire. At the end of life of the battery the vanadium in the vanadium flow battery can be reused or recycled into another vanadium flow battery. It’s important to recognise that vanadium flow batteries are a complementary technology to lithium-ion batteries – they have different uses. Lithium-ion is perfect for mobile use and vanadium flow batteries are perfect for stationary and long duration energy storage.
Flow batteries are a 40-year-old technology, they’ve been commercialised for 20 years and they’re actually reaching a new value in use case, that is that they’re economic for long duration storage. So, in the energy sector as we decarbonise, we really do need say 8 to 12 hour batteries to continue to move further and further into renewable energy penetration rates and vanadium flow batteries because of their nature being a very simple device where adding duration is as simple as filling up tanks full of this electrolyte to add duration that becomes a compelling economic proposition. So, we’re taking a proven old technology and we’re finding a new value in use case and it’s scaling in places like China right now. It’s actually starting to scale outside of China and coming from a low base, it’s actually growing faster than China, outside of China but of course in terms of actual vanadium units it’s not at the same level yet.
If you look at the uptake of VFBs worldwide in particular at scale in regions like China, there’s a really strong common theme and that is that you have access to a high – quality vanadium product, you have access to local demand and you have access to the ability to manufacture and build the solutions. So, when you look at the large – scale developments being done in China, they co-locate manufacturing with demand so they build an announcer of a 1GWh, a 2GWh VFB and they co-locate a manufacturing facility there. We have got the ability to do that in Australia as well; it’s a very unique scenario for AVL and VSUN Energy. You know, in this industry; in the battery metal space, it’s very difficult to be fully vertically integrated and do so in a commercial way and the challenges that we’re seeing in the market in this space, in particular for lithium, is that a lot of that work needs to be done offshore. Where we are able to differentiate and where we can take learnings from what China have done is we can look at onshoring as much of that process as possible. So, mining the vanadium within Australia in Western Australia, putting that vanadium into electrolyte units in Western Australia in Australia and then building and manufacturing those batteries here.
We’ve got the skillsets; it’s not difficult, it’s not overly onerous – the gap has been in the demand.
We now have a situation where there is a need for this technology and it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when we’ll be at significant scale, not just here in WA but throughout the country.
