Good News & Bad News, page-4748

..."5.- Grid connected storage systems. Short term Lithium will rule with LFP , but EV will compete fiercely for Li cells as energy density is vital for EVs but not for BESS. This will boost flow batteries use for large scale grid storage ; may be a small Li battery or a super cap in parallel is required to provide rapid frequency response or synthetic inertia… Domestic storage could easily share the market with flow batts once scale production is achieved ( i.e Redflow)."

Ok, you asked Cuixot, so here's my own 2 cents worth on your ideas in item 5.

I think that available Lithium supply is going to be so constrained, and so elevated in its pricing in the coming few years that it will end up being 'husbanded' by the Battery producers, for use by themselves only, in producing Batteries made for specific applications where the power/weight ratio is a critical factor, eg, for use in EVs, VTOLS, Drones etc.

CATL has already announced a month or two ago that they are working on the production of new Sodium-ion Batteries and hope to have them available, at commercial production scale, by 2023, from memory. They won't have the same light-weight and high energy-storage capability of Lithium Batteries, they will be heavier, but they will also be a lot cheaper to produce, and so IMHO, they will be far more suited to applications like Home-BESS, where weight and mobility and the need for instantaneous large power delivery, isn't the same critical factor, as for the Lithium Batteries used in EVs, etc.

I don't believe that small scale Flow Batteries like those produced by Redflow, using noxious chemicals like Bromine, will be likely to capture much of the residential BESS market in comparison to the likelihood of CATL's 'maintenance free' and low priced Sodium-ion cells, simply because of their lower inherent instantaneous current delivery capability, and the more onerous installation, and 'ongoing maintenance' and management requirements, of such 'electro-mechanical' small scale Bromine Flow Batteries.

Likewise, I think that Vanadium Flow Batteries because of their size and cost will only really be commercially viable in larger scale applications like, large Commercial Site power systems, or local Power Utility Grid scale applications.

As for your item 1. I think your concerns about 'Grid Capacity supply capability' if everyone tries to simultaneously charge their EVs overnight will end up being overcome by the Utility companies making the Grid 'Smart' and allowing it to 'talk to' and to 'remotely control', the charging of 'Smart loads' like EV's overnight. The other option would be folks choosing to charge their EVs during the day, from either, their own residential Solar, when they are at home, or even from the Grid, when at work, during the day, when Grid Solar Energy availability is also high, and cheap.

Most people commuting, to and from work, don't drive huge distances every day either, and so wont actually need to re-charge their own EV every day, perhaps once a week to fully charge it, or to top off their EV Battery would suffice, and so the total Grid loading would also likely be a lot less 'simultaneous' than it would at first appear to be, on a daily basis, for EV re-charging.

So apart from those few points, I am pretty well in agreement with all of your other proposals, appearing in all of your other numbered discussion items.

Cheers, AOF