Invinity Hires EPC Partner for 2.1GWh Swiss Flow Battery

Invinity Energy Systems has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract for its 2.1GWh vanadium redox flow battery storage project in Laufenberg, Switzerland, the company confirmed on 24 August 2026.

Invinity Energy Systems has confirmed it has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for its vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) project at Laufenberg, Switzerland — a facility sized at 2.1GWh and described by the company as a landmark for the technology.

The contract award, reported by Energy Storage News, moves the project from development into the phase where a single contractor takes responsibility for designing, buying and building the plant. For a technology that has spent most of the past decade in demonstration-scale projects measured in megawatt-hours, a gigawatt-hour-scale EPC award is a meaningful step change.

Why the unit of measurement matters here

Flow batteries are usually described by two numbers: power, in megawatts, and energy, in megawatt- or gigawatt-hours. A 2.1GWh rating describes how much energy the system can store and release, not how fast it can do so. That distinction is the whole commercial argument for the chemistry.

In a vanadium redox flow battery, the energy is held in liquid electrolyte stored in tanks, while the power rating is set separately by the size of the stack the liquid is pumped through. Adding storage duration means adding tanks and electrolyte rather than adding complete battery modules. In lithium-ion systems, energy and power are bound together inside the same cells, so longer duration means simply buying more of everything.

That is why flow batteries are pitched at long-duration applications — shifting solar output from midday to evening, or absorbing several hours of surplus wind — rather than at the fast-response frequency services where lithium-ion has been dominant. A 2.1GWh installation is squarely in the long-duration category.

What an EPC award signals about project maturity

Announcing an EPC partner is not the same as announcing financial close or first power, and the lead does not disclose the contractor, the contract value or the construction timetable. But EPC awards typically follow settled engineering, a defined site and a funding path clear enough for a contractor to commit crews and procurement.

For Invinity, which manufactures the VRFB stacks and modules rather than acting as a civil contractor, handing construction to a specialist EPC firm is the conventional route to scale. It lets the company concentrate on factory throughput and electrolyte supply while a third party carries the build risk on a Swiss site.

The location matters too. Switzerland’s power system leans heavily on hydro, which already provides a form of large-scale storage and flexibility. A battery of this size in that setting points to a market willing to pay for additional, faster-cycling flexibility as more variable renewable generation connects — and to a jurisdiction where permitting and grid interconnection can be navigated to completion.

Vanadium’s structural pitch against lithium-ion

The flow battery industry has argued for years that it competes not on installed cost per kilowatt-hour on day one, but on cost over a long asset life. Vanadium electrolyte does not degrade in the way lithium-ion cathodes do; it can, in principle, be recovered and reused at end of life. The systems are water-based and non-flammable, which removes a category of fire-safety engineering and siting objection that has dogged large lithium-ion installations.

Against that, lithium-ion enjoys an enormous manufacturing scale advantage built on the electric-vehicle supply chain, and grid-scale lithium-ion prices have fallen relentlessly. Flow battery developers have consequently struggled to convert technical merit into orders large enough to justify factory investment. Order sizes in the hundreds of megawatt-hours have been treated as milestones.

A 2.1GWh contract, therefore, sits in a different bracket entirely. Whatever its eventual construction schedule, it gives the vanadium sector a reference project of the size utilities and independent power producers use when benchmarking technologies against one another.

What to watch next

Several disclosures will determine how much this award is worth to Invinity in practice. The first is contract value and payment structure — whether Invinity is supplying equipment into an EPC wrap or taking a share of the wider project economics. The second is the delivery schedule, since a multi-gigawatt-hour build phased over several years reads very differently on a manufacturer’s order book than one delivered in a single burst.

The third is electrolyte. Vanadium supply is thinner and more concentrated than the lithium chain, and a project of this scale requires a substantial standing inventory of vanadium electrolyte. How that is financed — purchased outright, leased, or supplied under an offtake with a producer — is one of the most consequential structural questions for gigawatt-hour flow batteries, and it applies to every project of this size that follows.

Also worth tracking is whether the Laufenberg award pulls other European utilities toward long-duration procurement. Grid operators across the continent are facing the same problem: growing volumes of midday solar with nowhere to go and evening peaks that thermal plant is being retired out of serving. Storage procurement has largely been written to lithium-ion’s strengths. A completed gigawatt-hour flow battery would give buyers a working alternative to point at.

The market backdrop on the day

The announcement landed in a broadly flat session for U.S. equities. As of the last trade at 16:35 GMT on 24 August 2026, the S&P 500 tracker SPY stood at $764.62, down 0.14% from its previous close of $765.72, within a day range of $762.08 to $765.22. The Nasdaq 100 proxy QQQ was the weaker of the major benchmarks at $708.48, off 0.70% from $713.44, while the Dow tracker DIA rose 0.28% to $533.69.

That split — a soft tech tape against a firmer industrial index — is a reasonable frame for how energy storage news is currently received. Grid infrastructure and heavy build-out stories are being priced against industrial demand and interest-rate expectations rather than against the technology enthusiasm that carried the sector in earlier cycles. A hard order with a named contractor behind it is exactly the kind of evidence that market now asks for.

Key facts

• Project size: 2.1GWh vanadium redox flow battery
• Location: Laufenberg, Switzerland
• Milestone: EPC contract awarded, confirmed 24 Aug 2026
• Market backdrop: S&P 500 (SPY) $764.62, -0.14%, as of 16:35 GMT 24 Aug 2026

Frequently asked questions

What did Invinity Energy Systems announce?

Invinity confirmed that it has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract for its vanadium redox flow battery energy storage project in Laufenberg, Switzerland. The project is rated at 2.1GWh and the company describes it as a landmark, gigawatt-hour-scale installation for the flow battery industry. The contractor and contract value were not disclosed in the announcement.

What is a vanadium redox flow battery?

It is a battery that stores energy in liquid vanadium electrolyte held in external tanks. The liquid is pumped through a stack where the electrochemical reaction happens. Because storage capacity and power output are set by separate components, duration can be extended by adding electrolyte and tanks rather than whole battery modules.

How does 2.1GWh compare with typical flow battery projects?

Most flow battery deployments to date have been measured in megawatt-hours rather than gigawatt-hours, often as demonstration or early commercial systems. A 2.1GWh order is therefore an order of magnitude above the industry’s usual scale and gives utilities a large reference installation to benchmark against lithium-ion alternatives.

Why does an EPC contract award matter?

An EPC contract places design, procurement and construction responsibility with one contractor. Awards of this kind normally follow completed engineering, a secured site and a credible funding path, because a contractor must commit crews and long-lead purchasing. It signals a project moving from development into execution, though it is distinct from financial close.

What advantages do flow batteries claim over lithium-ion?

Flow battery developers point to long cycle life without the cathode degradation seen in lithium-ion, electrolyte that can be recovered and reused, and water-based chemistry that is non-flammable. That removes a class of fire-safety engineering and siting objections. The trade-off is lithium-ion’s far larger manufacturing scale and steadily falling grid-scale pricing.

What details remain unknown about the Swiss project?

The announcement did not name the EPC contractor, state the contract value, or set out a construction and commissioning timetable. How the vanadium electrolyte inventory is financed — purchased, leased or supplied under offtake — is also undisclosed and is a key economic variable for any gigawatt-hour-scale flow battery.

Sources

• Invinity confirms EPC contract award for 2.1GWh ‘landmark’ flow battery in Switzerland — Energy Storage News

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