Milestone for vanadium flow battery technology after electrolyte tests for Australian project

Factory acceptance testing of a long-duration energy storage battery has been successfully completed in a potential breakthrough for a local supply chain.

Already being ramped up in China, vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) could play a key role in storing and time-shifting energy generated from solar panels and wind turbines.

Australian Vanadium announced on Monday the first instance of its vanadium electrolyte being used in an operational VFB, with the product also meeting stringent quality standards for use by leading manufacturer Invinity Energy Systems.

The nonflammable flow batteries, whose underlying technology was developed in Australia, could play a key role in replacing diesel generators, particularly in harsh and remote locations.

The 220 kilowatt-hour battery will be installed at a Horizon Power site in Kununurra, Western Australia, as part of a pilot for powering regions with sustainable microgrids and off-grid power systems.

AVL’s chief executive Graham Arvidson said the company’s subsidiary VSUN Energy had worked closely with Horizon Power in recent months to integrate its hardware with the battery.

“This is also a significant milestone for AVL as it marks the first use of vanadium electrolyte produced at our Perth facility in a functioning battery,” he said.

Hydrogen car is dead and buried, just three years after Morrison hailed it a “game changer”

Remember Scott Morrison? The former prime minister had a bit of a blind spot when it came to new technologies, insisting that electric vehicles would “ruin the weekend”, and that big batteries would be as useful as the Big Banana or the Big Prawn.

But he did get excited about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, choosing to drive one – a Toyota Mirai – at the launch of the then Coalition government’s future fuel strategy, and declaring hydrogen to be a “game changer” for Australia because of their longer range.

As predicted at the time, that proved to be a false hope. In Australia, more than 63,000 EVs have been sold this year, and just 10 hydrogen fuel cell cars, and none to private buyers. Across the world, more than 14 million EVs were sold in 2023, and just 14,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars.

In the last two weeks two key reports have been released that have more or less buried the idea. The Climate Change Authority’s detailed sector pathways review for Australia’s net zero target made no mention of hydrogen cars for light vehicles, or even small trucks.

In the federal government’s updated National Hydrogen Strategy that was released late last week, hydrogen cars barely got a mention. It did identify three industries – iron, alumina and ammonia – where hydrogen could best be used to build new export industries.

Both reports suggested that hydrogen may have a role to play in aviation, shipping, electricity storage and heavy transport (although even the likes of BHP have dismissed that, saying battery electric will likely win there), but acknowledge that hydrogen can’t compete with battery electric cars.