Protean Energy Ltd has provided an important update regarding its V-KOR vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) electrolyte technology facilitated by the company’s 50 per cent owned subsidiary, KORID Energy (KORID).
The recent development of a new generation vanadium electrolyte by KORID has achieved improvements of up to 25% in energy density, representing a significant increase in electrolyte efficiency and cost performance.
This technical achievement has material positive implications for the V-KOR battery’s levelised cost of storage given that electrolyte represents between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of the total energy storage system cost of VRFBs.
KORID is also researching production of electrolyte using ammonia metavanadate (NH4VO3) which has the potential to markedly reduce the production cost of electrolyte.
It should be noted that this is in research stage, so investors should seek professional financial advice if considering this stock for their portfolio.
Korid has impressive product and patent profile
KORID owns a suite of patents covering the battery stack and intellectual property on electrolyte technology developed to date, with US$3 million spent in research, development, testing and intellectual property (IP) protection.
KORID has also recently completed testing of over 3,000 cycles on a V-KOR five kilowatt stack, representing 9 years of full daily cycles with no significant degradation of performance.
The majority of the cost related to VRFB systems is within the vanadium electrolyte and is resultant in the extensive research into the optimisation of electrolyte technology as a high priority.
VRFB’s proven lifespan of up to 20 years
The Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRFB) was invented over 20 years ago, and there have been several implementations of this technology in various countries.
The V-KOR systems use vanadium ions in different oxidation states to store energy in the form of two liquid electrolytes.
Importantly, VRFBs are proven to have excellent durability and life spans up to 20 years.
Energy storage capacity independent of power rating
A significant point of difference with VRFB systems is that their energy storage capacity is independent of the power rating.
This allows them to be designed for highly specific energy and power requirements, making them well suited to applications with large energy storage capacity specifications.
These batteries are currently used for grid scale energy storage applications where large-scale and long duration electrical energy storage is required.
Potential accelerated uptake from renewable energy generators
V-KOR was developed in response to the growing demand for more efficient energy storage solutions to support intermittent renewable energy production.
This technology is an ideal solution for rapidly growing intermittent renewable energy generation sources such as solar and wind.
Importantly, the developers are in a position where they can build batteries to scale, fitting a wide range of applications which effectively opens up multiple markets, essentially generating revenues from a broad client base.
Protean offers battery solutions from 2 kilowatt to 5 megawatt or larger built to order for commercial, industrial and grid scale applications.
V-KOR is a commercial stage technology that offers a rechargeable flow battery with the ability to store high levels of energy for longer and with a greater life expectancy than existing battery solutions.
