Vanadium news, page-5548

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Field test for non-lithium battery tech at mining site

Staying with Australia, a nickel-copper-cobalt mine site in Western Australia is now host to the country’s first NAS battery installation.

It’s a demonstration project where the 250kW/1.45MWh sodium-sulfur system’s operation will be tested and assessed by the Queensland University of Technology’s National Battery Testing Centre together with the University of Western Australia.

Announced yesterday by the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC), a government, industry and academic research partnership launched by the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Program in 2019, the project is located at resources company IGO’s Nova mine site in Western Australia’s Fraser Range in the Outback.

FBICRC said the NAS battery system entered operation in mid-February.

The trial “is an important way to field test the suitability of this unique technology in a mining environment and how this will contribute to a clean energy future,” IGO acting CEO Matt Dusci said.

The NAS battery, commercially available for nearly two decades and with around 5GWh of capacity deployed at over 250 sites around the world, is being touted as suitable for storage applications requiring 6-8 hours duration.