Enel installs 6.1 MWh vanadium redox flow battery in Spain

From pv magazine Spain

Canada-based vanadium mining company Largo Resources has announced that its U.S.-based unit Largo Clean Energy has signed its first supply agreement for its VCHARGE ± vanadium redox flow battery system, with Enel Green Power Spain, a unit of Italian renewable energy company Enel Green Power, which is itself part of the Enel group. Under the terms of the deal, Largo Clean Energy will provide a five-hour, 6.1 MWh system for a project in Spain whose start-up is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022.

The company’s VPURE and VPURE + vanadium products come from one of the three largest vanadium mines in the world, the company’s Maracás Menchen mine, located in Brazil. These compounds are used to develop’s Largo’s  VCHARGE ± vanadium redox flow battery technology.

Largo Clean Energy began, last year, the development of its vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology based on 12 patent families previously owned by U.S. storage specialist VionX Energy, whose assets it acquired for $3.8 million.

The battery employs a modular architecture based on 1 MW power and 2 MWh energy building blocks. A 1 MW system can be configured from 4.3 hours to 15 hours, while the 1.2 MW system can be configured from 3.6 to 12.6 hours. The 1.5 MW system will be configured from 2.9 to 10.1 hours, once it becomes available. The operating voltage range is 500 V to 800 V and the operating ambient temperature is -40 degrees Celsius to 45 degrees Celsius.

The reported DC efficiency is 78% and the AC efficiency is 68%. The battery lifetime is claimed to be of 20-plus years, with unlimited cycles. The company said the storage systems show degradation after 10,000 cycles, which is the equivalent of over 26 years, if cycled daily.