Basque research centre CIC energiGUNE is leading a European-wide project to develop next generation redox organic flow batteries.
The project aims to demonstrate that organic flow batteries can be a sustainable alternative to vanadium batteries, a material included in the list of critical raw materials by the European Commission.
The HIGREEW (High-performance Green Redox flow batteries) project aims to design a technology that can be coupled with renewables while delivering enhanced technical performance and greater efficiency.
The 40-month project aims to develop a new low-cost water-based organic electrolyte that will lead to a flow battery that costs €0.05 euros/kWh/cycle by 2030— the technical-economic challenge set by the European Commission in its European Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan.
The HIGREEW project consortium is composed of nine reference bodies in materials, storage systems and renewable energy.
The Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Bohemia (Czech Republic) are collaborating with the Basque research centre to improve the technical performance, service life and recyclability of the membrane, electrolyte and electrode.
These materials will be integrated into a cell for the initial validation tests to be performed by British engineering firm C-TECH, and Czech vanadium flow batteries specialists Pinflow.
Work will begin next year on integrating the new developments into a prototype designed by the British engineering firm Heights and by Gamesa Electric, a leading Basque partner in renewable energies.
The developed system will undergo safety, technical-economic feasibility and life cycle analyses at the Siemens Gamesa plant in La Plana (Valladolid), Spain.
This initiative is one of five projects in which CIC energiGUNE is involved and which were approved in the 2019 call of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Programme, within the “New Battery Generation” section.
Two of the approved projects will be led directly by CIC energiGUNE and will involve other BRTA (Basque Research and Technology Alliance) partners, such as Ikerlan and Cidetec, as well as Basque companies such as Gamesa Electric, and large international companies such as Toyota, Renault and Varta.