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Redflow of australia actually makes zinc bromide flow batteries now. It has not been a financial success to put it mildly... Much as I like the idea of flow bat
by gandalfian 6y ago
Redflow of australia actually makes zinc bromide flow batteries now. It has not been a financial success to put it mildly... Much as I like the idea of flow batteries I think their window of opportunity may be closing.
- syedkarim 6y agoHow much are the batteries? Why do you think the window is closing?
- gandalfian 6y agoBecause if lithium becomes established as cheap and good enough then there will less incentive to develope other technologies. Redflow I believe costs as much as a lithium battery but claims to degrade less and be able to be 100% discharged. In practice they have proven hard to manufacture reliably or competively. They seemed better when they stayed theoretical. Share price is down about 95%...
- woodandsteel 6y agoThe big advantage of flow batteries for large scale long term storage is to expand capacity you just need larger tanks and more chemicals. With lithium-ion you need to build more batteries.
- Andys 6y agoThey have two big problems: 1. lack of efficiency - only 80% roundtrip, much less than Lithium. 2. they go completely offline for periodic maintenance. This is done automatically by Redflow, but the loss of availability is problematic in some circumstances.
- ZeroGravitas 6y agoLithium seems to have won the high efficiency niche, but there's probably room for lower efficiency flow type batteries as long as they're super cheap.
- Andys 6y agoAgreed, but unfortunately, they are not cheaper and I'm not sure if its economies of scale or something else
- dmix 6y agoAre you saying they tried out Vanadium before Zinc Bromide or are you just lumping them both together?
- gandalfian 6y agoI'm lumping them together as flow batteries... Mix two liquids get electricity. Add electricity and they separate again. No memory effect, last as long as the pumps. Always liked the idea of replacing my heating oil tank with one. Not sure its ever going to happen though.
- marcosdumay 6y agoYou mean flow batteries in general or just vanadium redox? Because if it's in general, why would you think its opportunity window is closing? Closed batteries have no inherent advantage on large scale stationary projects, only problems. The only gain they bring is that you can ride on the scale of mobile applications.
- snovv_crash 6y agoI'm waiting for the old car batteries to start coming online, I think that will kill anything else for stationary systems, and will just get bigger.
- battery_cowboy 6y agoYou can't discharge and recharge a lead acid car battery very many times before it loses capacity.
- snovv_crash 6y agoI didn't believe it was necessary to specify this, but I meant Lithium car batteries, not lead.
- battery_cowboy 6y agoAh, sure, that makes more sense. I have to retrain myself to think of "car batteries" as something other than a heavy, plastic box of acid.
- tuatoru 6y agoIf we're talking about battery technologies that haven't (yet) achieved liftoff, then Ambri[1] high-temp liquid metal cells is another. [1] https://ambri.com https://ambri.com
- msandford 6y agoI've watched some of Sadoway's talks and they're definitely interesting. I'm curious to see if they play out favorably in the market. They're stationary-only from what I can tell, but if they're more robust that Li-ion the power-grid folks will love them.