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Australia“on the verge of a vanadium revolution” - Australian Mining

Australia has seen a vanadium breakthrough as the firstcommercial vanadium-flow battery has been completed in South Australia.

The vanadium-flow batteryfrom Yadlamalka Energy is expected to be running and exporting power by thisAugust.

YadlamalkaEnergy first announced the world’s largest solar-powered vanadium flow battery was on its way to SA in December 2020.

As reported by the ABC, Yadlamalka Energy has been undertaking the Spencer Energyproject at the Bungama sub-station, in Port Pirie. The project involves the 2-megawatt/8 megawatt per hour battery being connected to a grid of solar panels.

Thevanadium flow battery will utilise the day price variation in SA to time shiftpower from midday to peak periods in the mornings and evenings.

The ABC reported that the battery will store around ten gigawatts of dispatchable solar power per annum and will be charged from excess electricity produced by the solar panels when the sun is at its peak.

Thepower will then be delivered to households at night when the grid loads arehigh from demand and no solar generation is available.

YadlamalkaEnergy chairman Andrew Doman told the ABC that this would be the first commercial use of the battery in the southern hemisphere.

“This is abattery that has significant advantages over lithium-ion ones; the mostimportant one is the duration of this battery is four hours, unlike lithium batterieswhich typically last half-an-hour or two hours,” Doman said.

Domansaid that introducing vanadium batteries will help reduce high energy prices inAustralia.

“Whenelectricity prices are negative, we’ll be buying the electricity and that willhelp stabilise the grid, and when prices are high, we’ll be selling power intothe grid — that margin will have the effect to reduce prices,” Doman told the ABC.

“We’re on theverge of a vanadium revolution.”