Why flow batteries are going to change our energy matrix
An interesting article in The Washington Post, “These batteries could harness the wind and sun to replace coal and gas” explains the potential of flow batteries, which produce energy by pumping electrolytes from external tanks to a central battery.
Now being built by companies such as Japan’s Sumitomo Electric, which have developed projects in Australia, Belgium, California, Morocco and Taiwan, flow batteries can store excess production from large-scale renewable energy plants, subject to natural intermittency when there’s no sun or wind. We are talking about the cheapest energy in the world, but as is well known, it requires storage mechanisms to overlap its production curve with energy demand.
Flow batteries seem to make sense: China, which is already beginning to reduce its emissions, is building the world’s largest flow battery, which comes in at 800MWh, and that can provide as much energy as an average natural gas plant.
Lithium-ion batteries are perfect for anything from a smartphone to a home installation, because they are lightweight and can fit in small spaces, even if they have a limited duration and have to be changed frequently. But utilities have other priorities: they need to store millions of times more energy, and they have a lot more space to work with.
