One of the world’s largest vanadium redox flow batteries has been installed in China, courtesy of a subsidiary of Canada-based Sparton Resources.
The unit, which has a power capacity of 2 MW and 8 MWh of energy, has been installed for Chinese State Grid Company about 60 kilometres north of Beijing in the surrounding Hebei Province.
Featuring 10 units, each with 200 kW of power, it is integrated with large solar and wind power installations as part of the State Grid’s Zhangbei SGCC1 clean energy demonstration project.
The US$650,000 project, funded by Sparton subsidiary VanSpar Mining Inc, will be repaid by the State Grid over three years.
A battery of this size could support 40 modest domestic households if each consumed 20 KWh, or an industrial plant or service facility such as a hospital or a school.
Company President Lee Barker said: “Our interest in vanadium and new applications for vanadium products goes back several years. We believe that vanadium flow batteries provide the best current solution to storing clean energy produced by wind and solar systems and that the combination of clean electricity production and storage is an ideal solution for remote areas.
“Vanadium batteries are cost competitive, long life, (+20 years, +100,000 cycles) safe, not prone to overheating, and are fully recyclable.”
