Invinity Energy Systems announced the launch of a new vanadium flow battery capable of 4–18 hours’ duration and scalable from 3–100MW.
Called Endurium, the company said on 3 December it is “a significant leap forward” for long-duration energy storage (LDES). It has no cycle limits and is suited to large-scale projects from 12MWh to 1GWh, supplying 24/7 power to the grid.
Invinity’s president and CCO, Matt Harper, said: “Invinity’s mission has long been to build safe, durable batteries that will accelerate the path to net zero by delivering renewable power on demand. With Endurium, we now have the product that will achieve that goal.
“Endurium is designed to dispatch renewable-generated power on demand at a lower total cost than any fuel-based conventional form of energy.”
The first shipments will be made in December. Confirmed customers include multinational energy equipment supplier Gamesa Electric and Invinity’s partner, Taiwanese energy storage company Everdura.
The company said Endurium has been selected for 84MWh of projects backed by the US Department of Energy, with deliveries to Pacific Northwest National Labs and Dairyland Power Cooperative expected to commence in 2025.
The battery is one of the front-running products expected to be eligible for support under LDES Cap & Floor Scheme announced recently by the UK Government, Invinity said.
Separately, it announced the appointment of Adam Howard to the role of CFO and executive director on its board, effective 9 December.
Meanwhile, flow battery company Quino Energy has recently published updated information on reversing quinone negolyte degradation. It regards this as a key obstacle to commercialisation of organic flow batteries.
It said the Harvard team, in which Quino’s CTO Dr. Meisam Bahari is lead author, knew from work on a paper previously published in Nature Chemistry that quinone flow battery reactants like the fast-degrading 2,6-dihydroxyanthraquinone (2,6-DHAQ) undergo degradation by forming an anthrone and later a dianthrone dimer.
Both the anthrone and dianthrone are essentially over-reduction products of 2,6-DHAQ, and can be converted back to pristine 2,6-DHAQ through a mild electrochemical oxidation – in other words, an extra-deep discharge, it added.
It said through electrochemical regeneration in conjunction with optimised regeneration potentials and electrolyte pH, the Harvard team was able to achieve a 200-fold reduction in degradation rate from the baseline.
Quino’s CEO Eugene Beh told BEST: “This finding is of particular interest because it enables inexpensive quinones that would otherwise have fast degradation to become commercially viable flow battery reactants. We’ve already been able to achieve degradation rates more than 10 times lower than LFP batteries even with deep cycling. And if degradation ever gets out of hand, it’s good to know that this is a technique that we can call on.”
Photo: Invinity’s new flow battery, Endurium. Invinity
