Due to its intrinsic safety, easy expansion, low life cycle cost, and easy modular management, vanadium redox battery has extremely good application prospects on the power supply side, power grid side, and industrial and commercial user side.
1.What is vanadium redox battery?
The professional name of vanadium redox battery is all-vanadium redox flow battery. It is an environmentally friendly and large-capacity energy storage battery that can be deeply charged and discharged.
It uses the different chemical potential energies of vanadium ions in different oxidation states to preserve energy and has high charge and discharge efficiency. , The advantage of high safety is that the capacity can be increased with the increase of the liquid storage tank, and the electrolyte can be recycled.
2.What is vanadium in vanadium redox battery?
Vanadium (V) is a metal element with multiple valence states. Electric pairs can be formed between adjacent valence states of V (II), V (III), V (IV) and V (V) to take charge respectively.
For V(â…¡)/V(â…¢) and V(â…£)/V(â…¤) vanadium ion solutions as the positive and negative electrode electrolytes of the battery, the standard potential difference of the battery can reach 1.26 V, which makes vanadium can be used as a storage Energy materials.
3.Performance evaluation of vanadium redox battery
Advantage
- Intrinsically safe
The active material of vanadium redox battery is stored in the liquid storage tank outside the stack in the form of aqueous solution. There is no explosion or fire hazard. There is no danger even if the positive and negative electrolytes are mixed, but the temperature of the electrolyte will rise slightly, which is permanent The battery that does not explode is the most prominent advantage of vanadium redox battery compared with other electrochemical batteries.
- Long cycle life
The positive active material and negative active material of vanadium redox battery exist in the positive and negative electrolytes respectively. There will be no phase change during the charging and discharging process. It can be deeply discharged without damaging the battery.
The battery life cycle can be as long as 20 years. At present, the vanadium redox battery module with the longest running time in the Canadian VRB company’s power system commercial demonstration has been operating normally for more than 9 years, with a charge and discharge cycle life of more than 18,000 times, which is much higher than lithium batteries and lead-acid batteries.
- Easy to realize large-scale energy storage
The power and capacity of vanadium redox battery depend on the size of the stack and the volume and concentration of the electrolyte respectively. Increasing the concentration of the electrolyte can increase the power, and increasing the volume of the electrolyte can double the power. Therefore, vanadium redox battery can be used in large-scale energy storage power stations of hundreds of megawatts.
Disadvantages
- Low energy density
Due to the relatively large relative atomic mass of vanadium, the energy density of vanadium redox battery is generally only 12 to 40 Wh/kg, which is lower than the energy density of lithium battery of 80 to 300 Wh/kg.
Therefore, in order to achieve the same power storage, the energy density of vanadium redox battery is The volume is much larger than that of lithium batteries, which is 3 to 5 times the volume of lithium batteries, which greatly hinders the application of vanadium redox batteries in mobile terminals and power batteries.
- Low energy conversion efficiency
The vanadium redox battery requires a pump to maintain the flow of electrolyte, so its energy loss is large. The energy conversion efficiency of the vanadium redox battery is generally 70% to 75%, which is lower than the 85% to 95% energy conversion efficiency of lithium batteries.
- High initial installation cost
The initial installation cost of vanadium redox battery mainly consists of the stack and electrolyte. The raw materials are relatively expensive. In addition, the development of the vanadium redox battery industry is relatively slow and the industrial chain is imperfect. The current initial installation cost is 3.8 to 6.0 yuan/Wh. It is lithium More than 2 times the initial installation cost of the battery.
4. Comparison between vanadium redox battery and other mainstream batteries
Vanadium redox battery has greater advantages than lithium batteries, lead-acid batteries, etc. in terms of cycle life, safety, and life cycle cost, but it is still at a relative disadvantage in terms of energy density, energy efficiency, etc.
The working principle of the vanadium redox battery is different from that of the lithium battery.
The vanadium redox battery has two electrolytes, one for the positive and one for the negative electrode. The current is formed by the rise and fall of the valence state of vanadium ions, while the lithium battery mainly forms the current through the transport of ions.
The electrolyte of the vanadium redox battery is stored in a special tank, and the electrolyte of the positive and negative electrodes is transported to the positive and negative electrodes of the stack under the action of a pump. This structural design allows the capacity of the vanadium redox battery to be adjusted, the electrolytes stored separately will not react, and the safety is very high. Lithium batteries are far inferior to vanadium redox batteries in this regard.
In terms of use cycle, the vanadium redox battery can be charged and discharged up to 15,000 times, while the lithium battery can be charged and discharged about 3,000 times, which is 5 times that of the lithium battery.
In addition, the vanadium redox battery has a natural liquid cooling system. During the electric push cycle, the positive and negative electrolytes not only undergo chemical reactions, but also bring out the heat generated by the stack, keeping the battery in a moderate heat state. Lithium batteries have relatively poor stability when charged for a long time and are more likely to explode.
However, vanadium redox battery has two large tanks of electrolyte, so its volume is relatively larger than that of lithium batteries, and its energy density is far less than that of lithium batteries, only 12-40Wh/kg. At the same time, a pump is needed to maintain the flow of electrolyte. The loss is also greater.
5. Vanadium redox battery application
- Power side
It is mainly used as energy storage for new intermittent power generation systems such as wind power and solar energy storage systems to realize the integration of renewable energy storage into the grid.
Due to the instability of wind and solar power generation, it is easy to cause grid fluctuations, making grid connection difficult, and the abandonment of wind and light is more serious. vanadium Redox battery can be used to collect these discontinuous and unstable clean energy and store it to reduce energy waste.
- Grid side
It is mainly used for peak-shaving and valley-filling of the power grid. When the power grid is under low load, excess electric energy is stored. When the power grid is under high load, it is used as an auxiliary power supply to input electric energy to the power grid, thereby balancing the power grid load and improving the stability and reliability of the power grid.
In addition, vanadium redox battery has great advantages over pumped hydro energy storage in terms of site selection, with free site selection, less land occupation, and low maintenance costs.
- Industrial and commercial user side
For large-scale power-consuming enterprise users or industrial parks, it is used in time-of-use electricity price scenarios to store low-price electricity and use it during times of high electricity prices, such as areas with high electricity prices in East China.
It can also be used as an energy storage and power generation system in remote areas and isolated island areas. , as well as UPS energy storage backup power for large emergency energy storage enterprise users such as telecommunications hub centers, big data centers, etc.
6. Analysis of vanadium redox battery industry
The raw material of vanadium redox battery mainly comes from vanadium slag. Currently, vanadium resources are mainly concentrated in China, Australia, Russia and South Africa. Among them, China’s vanadium resource reserves account for 39% of the world’s and its production accounts for 68% of the world’s, ranking first in the world.
In the development of vanadium redox battery, independent control can be achieved. In terms of lithium battery resource supply, China’s production accounts for only 13% and relies on imports.
7. Vanadium redox battery industry chain
The vanadium redox battery energy storage system is mainly composed of a stack, electrolyte, energy storage inverter, intelligent control, storage tank, container, pipe pump, valve sensor. The core components are the stack and the electrolyte.
The main component of the electrolyte is vanadium pentoxide. The vanadium redox battery industry chain consists of the upstream raw material supply chain, the midstream vanadium redox battery processing and production enterprises, and the downstream application end.
The upstream raw material supply chain of the vanadium redox battery industry mainly includes vanadium ore, vanadium pentoxide, battery system accessories, electrolyte configuration, etc. Among them, vanadium ore and its processing industry are at the core and are the main source of vanadium pentoxide.
The midstream of the vanadium redox battery industry is mainly vanadium redox battery processing and production enterprises, including stack assembly, control systems, other equipment and accessories, etc. Among them, the technical barriers to stack assembly and control systems are the highest.
The downstream of the vanadium redox battery industry is mainly the application end, which is mainly used in the field of energy storage, new energy vehicles, electrochemistry, steel and other fields.
8. Summary
All in all, in recent years, with the upgrade of energy storage safety requirements and the increase of energy storage time, based on the high safety of vanadium redox battery and the small increase in marginal cost with the increase of energy storage time, vanadium redox battery has been widely used in large-scale long-term operation.
It has excellent performance in energy storage. Under the current technical bottleneck in increasing the total vanadium concentration of the electrolyte, the battery capacity of the vanadium redox battery can be increased by simply increasing the volume of the electrolyte.
In the future, vanadium redox battery will develop new clean production processes, electrolyte rental operation models, and application in large-scale energy storage is the development trend of vanadium redox battery industry. In general, vanadium redox battery industry will have huge development potential and broad prospects in the global energy storage.
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