The European Commission is backing plans by scientists in Russia to develop a hybrid energy storage system combining a vanadium flow battery and supercapacitor.
During the next three years, researchers at Moscow’s research institute Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) will work on the HyFlow energy storage system.
The project is set to validate this approach on a demonstrator 5kW scale, and then on an industry 300kW scale.
The system will consist of a vanadium redox flow battery, a supercapacitor, advanced converter topologies, and a highly flexible control system.
Reaserchers aim to use recycled vanadium in the battery to reduce the environmental impact as well as costs. They are part of an international research consortium that received a €4 million ($4.7 million) funding from the European Commission for the project
Skoltech assistant professor and principal investigator Federico Martin Ibanez, research scientists Sergei Parsegov and Yuriy Lyulin as well as PhD student Mikhail Pugach will be joined by colleagues from Germany, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Portugal.
Dr Ibanez, believes the supercapacitors will transfer high power to the grid while the vanadium technology will store large amounts of energy to deliver fast response services to the grid.
He said: “Skoltech is involved in the energy management of this complex system, in order to properly select the source of energy, supercapacitors or vanadium redox flow batteries.
“For that, Skoltech will develop advance models for vanadium batteries and control algorithms which select the proper source. In addition, Skoltech will also play an important role in improving the thermal capabilities of a vanadium battery in order to increase the power delivery.”