Contributions of Current Density and Voltage Efficiency to Estimated Capital Costs of an All Vanadium Redox-Flow Battery

Utility scale flow batteries have the potential to provide a number of important benefits including peak shaving, load leveling, electrical grid stabilization and energy storage from wind or solar power.  Research into the all-vanadium redox-flow battery (VRB) seeks to take advantage of the multiple oxidation states of vanadium ions and the diminished risk of cross contamination between the anolyte and catholyte solutions.  This presentation focuses on utilizing the latest data from research activities at the University of Tennessee in determining the controlling parameters of capital cost estimation.   The purpose of this study is to utilize recent data to find a simple and effective way of predicting the manufacturing cost trends.  The single-cell data cover a range of values of current density, and associated voltage efficiency.  The experimental data from these tests appear to be the highest current densities yet published.  The manufacturing costs of the stacks are inversely proportional to the product of current density and the voltage efficiency, while the cost of the vanadium electrolyte is inversely proportional to the voltage efficiency.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge support of the Electric Power Research Institute and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Tennessee Solar Conversion and Storage using Outreach, Research and Education (TN-SCORE) Program, NSF EPS-1004083, under Thrust 2.