Clean technology expert praises Vanadium Flow battery June 5,...

Clean technology expert praises Vanadium Flow battery

June 5, 2017Energy Matters

Lithium-ion isn’t the only option for those wanting a battery solution claims Matt Harper Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Avalon Battery.
In a detailed analysis released on LinkedIn this week the advantages of solar trackers and Vanadium Flow batteries were explored.
This coincides with the release last year of the NX Fusion Plus which is set to revolutionize the way battery and solar interact.
What are Vanadium Flow batteries?

In the simplest way to explain, Vanadium batteries employ vanadium ions in different oxidation states to store chemical potential energy.
Vanadium batteries are based on a different kind of technology and have some added benefits as compared to Lithium-Ion in some situations.
As explained by Harper the batteries can last upwards of 30 years and don’t lose their effectiveness as traditional lithium-ion batteries do.

Image: Matt Harper
The article explains why this technology is effective in protecting from overheating,
“Since the energy is stored in liquid, the batteries can effectively manage the heat that’s generated inside the battery during the charge-discharge cycle, thus preventing the possibility of accidental overheating and prolonging the service life.”
The power can also be amplified which other forms of batteries cannot do meaning that they can be designed for either power or energy applications.
NX Fusion Plus the future of solar and battery solutions

The way in which the NX Fusion plus works is quite simple, it uses the shared goal of broadening and flattening energy generation which helps to optimize plant performance while kilowatt-hour production is maximized.
As summarized in the article,
“What really brings all this energy-harvesting capability together is the fully integrated system intelligence within the components themselves and across the platform of connected devices…”
“Rather than solar-plus-storage, the NX Fusion Plus represents the first deeply integrated solar-and-storage system. The era of renewable baseload generation may be closer than you think.”
The NX Fusion plus was announced last year by Energy Matters parent company Flex. The company behind the device NEXTracker is currently the number 1 selling solar tracker in the world, their product has helped with many high profile solar projects such as the Mt Majura Solar build by Flex.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/ren...-expert-praises-vanadium-flow-battery-em6067/