Discharge price of all-vanadium liquid flow battery

Vanadium flow batteries are one of the most promising large-scale energy storage technologies due to their long cycle life, high recyclability, and safety credentials. However, they have lower energy density compared to ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries, and their uptake is held back by high upfront cost.

The United States has some vanadium flow battery installations, albeit at a smaller scale. One is a microgrid pilot project in California that was completed in January 2022.

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) can effectively solve the intermittent renewable energy issues and gradually become the most attractive candidate for large-scale stationary energy storage. However, their low energy density and high cost still bring challenges to the widespread use of VRFBs.

Their model considers the present and future competitivity of industrial flow batteries in operating specific services, which have not yet been developed to an accurate grade, and yields economic performance indicators such as capital costs, operative costs, levelized cost of storage (LCOS), and net present value.

The purpose of this data-file is to build up the costs of redox flow batteries, starting from first principles, for Vanadium redox flow batteries. A 6-hour redox flow battery costing $3,000/kW would need to earn a storage spread of 20c/kWh to earn a 10% return with daily charging and discharging over a 30-year period of backstopping renewables.

Overall we think that for long-duration, grid-scale electricity storage, redox flow batteries are looking more economical than lithium ion, especially once storage durations surpass 6-8 hours. Our comparison file is here. This data-file contains a bottom-up build up of the costs of a Vanadium redox flow battery.