Thomas Gebauer, Chief Executive Officer: Redox One
The growing global need for power is being met by countries and companies doing amazing work in rapidly installing renewable wind, hydro and solar generation capacity. The capacity of wind and solar generation is set to top 1 000 GW globally by 2030. This brings a major challenge as their generation isn’t constant – solar panels don’t produce energy when the sun isn’t shining, and wind turbines don’t pump out power when there’s no wind.
The key to harnessing the intermittent renewable energy we’re generating – and are set to generate exponentially more of – is to capture the energy in storage devices like batteries with sufficient capacity to retain it for long periods (4-12 hours). This is needed to cover the times when new energy isn’t being generated. These storage mediums will need to discharge quickly, efficiently and safely to meet peak demand. Today’s installed capacity of these stationary storage solutions is less than 200GWh, but we actually need over 5,000GWh. By 2040, it’s estimated the world will require 160 TWh of installed storage capacity per year.
Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Solutions are the answer to this challenge – and, as with every technology, there are some technologies that are better suited to specific applications than others.
The emerging market for LDES is driven by the need to replace fossil fuel generation with renewables while minimising costs, improving reliability and managing the environmental issues around building new transmission infrastructure. These large-scale storage systems need to be capable of performing peak shaving services, grid congestion management and time-shifting of renewables – effectively making the energy produced by renewable sources available from storage when there is minimal or no generation.
That means that LDES solutions are required at grid scale, safe enough to be placed within the distribution grid near residences, businesses, hospitals, critical infrastructure, and industrial sites and must have utility project lifetimes measured in decades. They also need to be quickly, easily and cost-effectively site-ready, as required at the scale and durations needed to solve grid congestion problems and enable high penetrations of new renewables.
Redox One Flow Batteries uses Chromium and Iron, dissolved in a slightly acidic solution to create the electrolyte which allows for energy to be stored and discharged. This solution is not flammable and performs better at higher temperatures, making it ideal for deployment in warm climates. Exposure to the non-corrosive electrolyte solution poses minimal health risks – limited skin irritation on contact, for example.
The electrolyte experiences virtually no capacity decay and is essentially an eternal asset. Should the time come for the battery to be recycled, the extracted electrolyte can easily and safely be restored to its original Chromium and Iron elements and used for other applications for which they would otherwise have been used if they didn’t find their way into our electrolyte solution.
Finding the right storage solution involves, amongst other things, balancing cost, capacity, sustainability, site space and safety – and we believe that renewable, non-toxic, non-flammable Redox Iron-Chromium Flow Batteries are the present – and future – of LDES.