Australian Vanadium (AVL) has signed two memoranda of understanding (MoU) in the past few weeks to supply vanadium redox flow battery makers with material from its planned Gabanintha Project in the US.
Both MoUs establish off-take deals to support deployment of Canadian firm Enerox’s CellCube system and China’s Gui Zhou Collect Energy Century Science and Technology’s vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) on the Australian market.
In addition to the MoU, AVL’s wholly owned subsidiary VSUN Energy signed a value added reseller agreement with Enerox for the supply and installation of its CellCube products and services in Australia
Trading as CEC, the Chinese firm develops VRFB technology from its base in Qiandongnan, Guizhou Province, China.
CEC’s deal covers the supply of high purity vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), which is constrained in China for VRFB applications due to high demand from the country’s micro-alloy steel industry.
The 24-month term of the MoU will consider a minimum of 2,000 tonnes of V2O5 per annum from AVL’s planned
CEC aims to develop and launch a residential and commercial VRFB for the Australian energy storage market next year.
AVL is planning to supply vanadium electrolyte directly into CEC’s VRFBs in Australia.
To facilitate the development of CEC’s VRFB, VSUN Energy will test a 5kW/30kWh system in Western Australia next month.
VSUN will suggest changes that enable the system to operate on Australian grids. It is anticipated a residential scale product will be commercially ready in early 2021.
The battery will include an inverter that enables it to store energy for self-consumption or to export domestically generated renewable power to the grid.
In return for product and market development assistance, the MoU includes the intent for VSUN Energy to have an exclusive right of sale over the product(s) in Australia for an initial period of 12 months, with the option to renew.
AVL’s managing director Vincent Algar said, “VSUN Energy has seen a significant number of inbound enquiries for a grid connected, long duration residential VRFB to fill a space that is currently met by short life, short duration, less flexible and less safe energy storage solutions. Using solar energy at a time that suits the householder is the ideal application for VRFB energy storage.”
AVL’s goal is to vertically integrate from mining vanadium, through the value chain to onshore production of electrolyte and battery manufacturing in Australia.
Prior to its planned production, AVL plans to source third party V2O5 to locally manufacture electrolyte for battery use.
