Vincent Algar is managing director of Australian Vanadium Limited (AVL), which is in the final stages of achieving approval for a vanadium mine in Western Australia, and a vanadium electrolyte processing plant near Geraldton on the state’s coast. He readily admits self-interest in promoting the benefits of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) as a transformative technology for stationary storage applications.
Enter AVL, which is set to commission its mine and processing facility in late 2024-early 2025 and believes it can be a lowest-cost producer of vanadium pentoxide – the key electrolyte ingredient. AVL posits competitive advantages including a high-grade deposit of the mineral in an established and stable mining nation, and that it has developed and patented more efficient systems for extracting and processing the ore.
In December 2021, Australia’s federal government awarded AVL an AUD 49 million ($34 million) Manufacturing Collaboration Grant, to create an Australian, green-fuelled vanadium industry. Algar says that AVL’s methods of refining vanadium already reduce its reliance on fossil fuel gas by 30% compared to other current methods, and the company has an agreement with energy supplier ATCO to introduce green hydrogen into its gas pipeline.
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