Lithium News

Renewable energy developer RES Australia plans to build a 176MW solar farm with battery storage at Pallamana, about 60km south-east of Adelaide near the town of Murray Bridge.

The solar farm would supply solar electricity to the National Electricity Market – generating enough power to meet the needs of 82,000 homes – and would also store energy to be dispatched later via lithium-ion battery banks, the company says.

According to the Pallamana Solar Farm website, the project gained “Crown sponsorship” in February, and RES expects to apply for development approval in the first half of this year, with an eye to begin construction in Q2 2019.

The 730 hectares of land proposed for the project is currently being used for cropping, RES says, and would continue to be used for sheep grazing once the solar farm was built.

Also in South Australia, RES recently proposed construction of what would be Australia’s biggest battery storage facility – up to 215MW – next to a new 180MW wind project north of Adelaide.

The proposal at the Twin Creek wind farm, made in a planning submission to the South Australia Planning Commission, would be bigger than the existing Tesla big battery, and a bigger installation planned for Whyalla by industrialist Sanjeev Gupta.

In the Murraylands, the SA region proposed for the company’s new solar and battery project, a separate solar project by Equis Energy aims to develop a potentially 238MW solar plant next to a diesel power station near Taliem Bend.

US researchers have made progress in the design of a safe, sustainable and economical alternative battery technology for renewable energy storage.

According to Utah State University chemist Tianbiao Liu, battery storage of renewable energy resources such as solar and wind present challenges because of unstable grid energy, heavy cycling that requires frequent charging and discharging, as well as irregular, full recharging.

“For this reason, we need new battery technologies,” Liu said.

Two better than one

Liu’s team has come up with a new molecular design for aqueous organic redox flow batteries (AORFB).

The research, published in Angewandte Chemie, describes the synthetic molecule. A unique feature is a two-electron storage anolyte for neutral – and completely organic – AORFBs.

“The two-electron structure … enables total use of organic materials based on abundantly available elements, such as nitrogen and hydrogen,” Liu explained.

During testing, the prototype battery delivered 1.44V with energy efficiency of 70 per cent, and almost perfect capacity retention of 99.97 per cent.

“The design is very robust and very stable,” said Liu.

Go with the flow

The energy in redox flow batteries (RFB) is stored in liquid electrolyte solutions. These solutions pass through a stack of electrochemical cells during charge and discharge cycles.

The size of the stack determines the power output of the battery (tens of kilowatts to tens of megawatts), and the size of the electrolyte tanks sets the energy storage capacity (500 kWh to hundreds of megawatt-hours). This means that RFBs can be tailored to generator units.

Unlike current popular renewable energy storage technologies – such as lead-acid and lithium ion batteries – redox flow batteries provide complete separation of power and energy. If something goes wrong, the flow can be stopped, and only the small percentage of power stored in the electrochemical cells will be released.

One challenge of RFBs is the low energy density per volume compared to lithium ion and lead-acid batteries, which means they have to be much larger to provide the same storage capacity.

Liu said organic RFBs show promise for large-scale storage of renewable energy, as redox-active molecules are synthetically tuneable, sustainable and economical.

“We think they’re a great alternative to existing technologies to meet growing demand for battery storage of environmentally friendly, renewable energy resources such as solar and wind power,” he said.

Kokam has announced that it has successfully deployed the largest lithium ion battery deployed for industrial application in Australia for Alinta Energy. The ESS features Kokam’s high power Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) Oxide battery technology, and is being used to improve the performance of an islanded high voltage network, which supplies power to major iron ore producers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The new 30-megawatt (MW) system Energy Storage System features Kokam’s high power Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) Oxide battery technology, and:

Is being used in conjunction with an existing 178 MW open cycle gas turbine, creating a hybrid natural gas/battery storage system that, along with a 220 kV high voltage power transmission system and high voltage substations, forms an islanded microgrid used to power iron ore mines in Western Australia.
Will improve the reliability, efficiency, and sustainability of the islanded microgrid.

Demonstrates how high power battery technologies, such as Kokam’s Ultra High Power Lithium-ion NMC battery technology, meeting growing market demand for the high-power output needed for spinning reserve, ancillary services, mining, off-shore drilling and other industrial and utility energy storage applications.

Mahindra & Mahindra and LG Chem announced a collaboration in the field of advanced lithium-ion batteries for EVs in India.
LG Chem is set to develop a unique cell exclusively for Indian application and will design battery modules, too.

Those batteries will be used in Mahindra and SsangYong electric vehicles.

Mahindra is also going to build a battery module and pack plant in India in late 2020.

Under the aegis of this collaboration, LG Chem will develop a unique cell exclusively for India application and will also supply Li-ion cells based on NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) chemistry with high energy density. These cells will be deployed in the Mahindra and SsangYong range of Electric Vehicles. LG Chem will also design the Li-ion battery modules for Mahindra Electric, which in turn will create battery packs for the Mahindra Group and other customers.”

“In keeping with the investment plan already announced by Mahindra last year, a battery module plant is also under development. The plant will have a capacity of half a million battery modules per annum and will also house a battery module pack line and the entire facility for both module and pack is expected to go into production in the last quarter of FY 2020.”

Commenting on this announcement, Hemant Sikka, President & Chief Purchase Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. said:

The Electric Vehicle revolution is taking the country by storm and at Mahindra we are happy to be at the forefront of this change. This association with LG Chem will give Mahindra the requisite access to advanced battery technology and will also enable us to deliver globally competitive products. At Mahindra we are preparing to scale up in accordance with our expansion plans in order to meet demand expected in the near future. We look forward to a strong and fruitful association with LG Chem.”

According to JH Kim, LG Chem’s Executive Vice President in Energy Solution Company:

LG Chem is honored to have a collaboration with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. In the field of advanced Li-ion battery technology, LG Chem expects this collaboration will be one of the memorable moment for putting the commercialization of Electric Vehicle forward in India market.”

China’s Tianqi Lithium Corp said on Thursday it would buy a minority stake in Chilean lithium producer SQM for US$4.07 billion, gaining more global access to a key component in rechargeable batteries that power mobile phones and electric cars.

The growing demand and production for electric vehicles by auto companies worldwide is fuelling a scramble for the ingredient, which is held mainly by Argentina, Australia, Chile and China.

Tianqi, which is already building a major lithium processor in Western Australia, will buy 62.5 million SQM A shares for US$65 each from Canadian fertilizer producer Nutrien Ltd.

Nutrien is selling three-quarters of its around 32 per cent stake in SQM, Laurential Bank analyst John Chu wrote in a note.

Tianqi not buying the full 32 per cent SQM stake was likely due to a compromise between Nutrien and the Chilean government to remove any possibility for Tianqi to one day control SQM, BMO Capital Markets analyst Joel Jackson wrote in a note.

Chile’s former government in March had tried to block the deal for the valuable resource as SQM is the second-largest lithium producer in the world after U.S.-based Albemarle Corp .

Reuters reported earlier this week that Tianqi and SQM were in talks for a deal. Tianqi had been circling SQM since 2016.

The stake sale is necessary for Nutrien to meet regulatory commitments after it was formed by the merger of Agrium and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan.

SQM, whose U.S.-listed shares were down 1 per cent at US$57.46 in opening trade, also has a significant fertilizer business.

Nutrien plans to sell its remaining 20.2 million B shares of SQM in the future.

Earlier on Thursday, Australia’s Kidman Resources Ltd said it would supply lithium for Tesla Inc’s electric car batteries.

Zimbabwe has a small window of up to 24 months to start producing battery grade lithium and ride the wave of high prices, miners said on Thursday, but the country’s high political risk made financing projects difficult.

Since the fall of Robert Mugabe after a de facto military coup last November, new President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been trying to shore up foreign investor interest in a country rich in mineral resources but starved of capital.

Three other miners expect to start production of lithium concentrates from the end of 2018 and next year.

Grant Hudson, Bikita’s managing director said Zimbabwe should take advantage of the high demand as well as buyers who are seeking to diversify supplies away from South America and Australia, the biggest producers.

“The time is now. People want resources now, people are looking to diversify supply chains away from these places (South America and Australia),” Hudson said during a meeting with mining executives in the resort town of Victoria Falls.

“There is a lot of interest and Zimbabwe has to ride that wave. We don’t have time to sit here for two or three years and work out what we need to do. We need to be chasing the investor money right now.”

George Roach, chief executive at Premier African Minerals, which owns Zulu Lithium in western Zimbabwe said it would cost at least $238 million to set up a mine and lithium carbonate plant, money that could only be raised offshore.

The project is still at exploration stage.

Arcadia Lithium Project, which is owned by Australian listed Prospect Resources expects to start producing lithium concentrates in 2019, hitting annual production of 240,000 tonnes at full capacity, executive director Harry Greaves said.

“It is a key, key problem for us raising capital moving forward particularly into the lithium carbonate plant. So we do need to resolve that if ever we are going to get true value,” Greaves said at the same meeting.