The is quite a danger of fire with large scale lithium based utility storage - You can't just rush out with a fire hose and pump some water on a Lithium based fires - water, air and Lithium are not a great combination.
This article quotes 40 major fires
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/05/tesla-megapack-fire-highlights-early-stage-issues-with-big-batteries.htmlThere is also the relatively limited lifespan of Lithium based batteries before their storage efficiency starts to degrade significantly (10 or 12 years?) - a big investment for a comparatively shorter life span than for a flow battery, which also do not have the thermal risks of Lithium batteries.
Yes VRFB take up a lot more space and perhaps have less energy density than a comparable sized Lithium based installation - but on large scale utility storage that is not a major issue if you need to use some more space to get the likely cost/safety/lifespan benefits of a flow battery compared to a lithium based battery using current technology for lithium batteries.
The world is just starting to explore large scale and transport energy storage technologies - there is research going on with all sorts of material combinations what we have now will likely be significantly different in say 10 years - will Vandium feature - certainly at this stage it has attractions for certain use cases - only time will tell what battery technologies eventually dominate storage.
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