Exploring the Future of Energy Storage: Why Flow Batteries are Gaining Ground Over Lithium-Ion – Batteries News interviews Quino Energy.
The grid storage industry is booming, driven by the surging demand for lithium-ion batteries fueled by electric vehicles and grid storage applications. However, the complexities and risks associated with the lithium-ion supply chain are prompting a reevaluation of alternative technologies. In an exclusive interview with Batteries News, industry experts highlight the burgeoning interest in flow batteries, particularly water-based systems, as a safer and more sustainable solution. These batteries not only mitigate the fire risks inherent in lithium-ion technology but also offer a more stable and ethical supply chain, making them a compelling choice for the future of energy storage.
What is the current state of the grid storage industry today?
Energy storage couldn’t be faring better. Prices are falling, and the market – already substantial – is growing. There’s never been a better time to be in the battery industry.
Lithium-ion battery production is booming due to electric vehicles and grid storage demand. With that success, why should we advocate for flow batteries?
Yes, lithium-ion battery production is booming. But its supply chain is rife with complexities and risks. Lithium-ion batteries use critical materials, including not only lithium but also graphite, nickel, manganese, etc. These minerals aren’t evenly distributed around the world, and the places where they do concentrate involve geopolitical, environmental, and/or human rights concerns.
Take lithium as an example. Its highest exporters are Chile, Bolivia, Australia, and China. In the first three countries, there is significant local opposition to lithium mining due to its potential for negative environmental impact. And in China, geopolitical tensions make countries such as the U.S. hesitant to rely on such a potentially volatile supply. Even something as simple as graphite is now caught up in a growing trade war between the U.S. and China.
Then, on the ethical side, we have cobalt, which lies primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, there are not only environmental concerns but also significant human rights concerns with the local workforce – so much so that some researchers are experimenting with novel battery chemistries that avoid cobalt entirely.
Battery manufacturing complicates supply chains further. The ratio of Chinese manufacturers to U.S. manufacturers is more than 10:1, so mining isn’t the only hurdle that lithium-ion batteries need to clear. With the current geographic distribution, battery manufacturing itself poses an energy security concern.
How has the U.S. government tried to encourage domestic battery production? Why are they pushing for this?
So far, the U.S. has encouraged domestic battery production through domestic carrots and foreign sticks.
The Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark 2022 climate legislation, is the carrot. It’s full of support (mostly tax incentives) for domestic battery production. The administration’s foreign policy work on the Minerals Security Partnership has also targeted critical mineral supply chain issues.
Meanwhile, tariffs constitute the primary stick. The Biden administration recently raised tariffs on Chinese-manufactured EVs and batteries and those tariffs aim to counteract what advocates perceive as artificially low prices, due to years of extremely generous support for those industries by the Chinese government.
Why the sticks and carrots? The U.S. government wants supply chain security and domestic job growth. It doesn’t want to depend on China for an essential ingredient of its energy transition plan. And it would like any job growth that stems from increased U.S. battery demand to occur in the U.S., not in China.
These trends aren’t for batteries alone – The U.S. government is pushing domestic supply chains and domestic manufacturing across clean energy tech.
Manufacturers claim lithium-ion batteries are safer than earlier versions. In that case, why do we need a non-flammable battery option?
As the number and size of battery installations increase, the energy storage industry needs a non-flammable battery option. Although lithium-ion phosphate batteries are less flammable than cobalt-based batteries, their fire risks are still significant and remain uniquely challenging for firefighters to handle. Given the duration and danger of lithium-ion battery fires, the industry NEEDS a zero-fire-risk solution if we are to scale without compromising our reputation for safety.
Why are lithium-ion batteries prone to fire? Simply put, lithium-ion batteries sacrifice safety for higher energy density. A manufacturing defect in just one battery cell is enough to cause a serious fire. That risk may be worthwhile for electric bikes and scooters, where high energy density enables the vehicles to increase their range while maintaining a smaller size. But for stationary storage installations, which involve higher stability and minimal need for mobility, energy density is simply not worth the safety tradeoff. That calculus is especially pressing as installations grow. Increasingly large projects mean 1) more individual cells that could potentially catch fire and 2) more neighboring cells that could feed a fire once one defective cell provides the spark. So a non-flammable energy storage solution is an essential investment if the industry wants to increase its battery installations without increasing its battery fires.
Preventing battery fires is especially important given their potential damage to local health, local economies, and clean energy reputation. Once a fire starts, firefighters can do very little to stop it. Sometimes, they can put out the fire by dumping massive amounts of salt into the flames; otherwise, they must let it burn itself out, while working to prevent the flames from spreading. They also make the local population shelter in place to protect from the fire’s toxic fumes, which include chemicals such as fluorine and PFAS materials that are dangerous for people to inhale.
Secondary to the health and safety concerns, fire risk limits the installation possibilities of big lithium-ion battery factories and warehouses. This can slow progress in the broader energy transition. Projects must be installed far from cities, often out in the desert. While this distance protects population centers from fire risk, it reduces projects’ efficacy: ideally, battery installations would be located near cities, which consume most electricity. Locating electricity consumption far from electricity generation and storage makes grid congestion worse. On the other hand, when developers try to locate lithium-ion batteries near the places that need them, they often encounter community pushback due to safety issues, which can add years to project timelines while addressing community pushback.
Truly fire-safe batteries would help energy storage to be installed more quickly, where it will do the most good.
What are water-based flow batteries?
Water-based flow batteries are a form of redox flow battery, which store energy in tanks containing liquid electrolyte solutions. (At Quino Energy, we repurpose old oil tanks.) Then, to charge and discharge the battery, the system pumps electrolytes from the tanks through an electrochemical cell. Some perks: the battery material reactants are dissolved in water, meaning the system poses zero fire risk. Plus, water-based flow batteries can be made with materials readily available domestically, which makes supply chains more stable, affordable, and scalable.
When people want to visualize the difference between flow batteries and traditional lithium-ion batteries, a good way tot think about it is like a car. A flow battery combines two liquid reactants – like a fuel and an oxidizer – inside an electrochemical cell that plays a similar role as a car’s engine. With flow batteries, if you want a car to run for longer before refueling, you can increase the size of the gas tank. With lithium-ion batteries, the size of the gas tank is fixed relative to the engine so you’d have to buy a new car with an extra engine you don’t really need.
Quino Energy’s water-based flow batteries store electrical energy in organic quinone molecules for commercial and grid applications, rather than in critical materials like vanadium. We are commercializing the aqueous organic flow battery technology pioneered at Harvard University.
What are the benefits of water-based flow batteries?
Water-based flow batteries involve zero fire risk. Because all active battery materials are immersed in water, the battery will never catch fire.
Even if the worst happens and all the battery energy gets discharged, the large thermal mass of water will insulate the system from getting too hot. The absolute worst case scenario is that the battery temperature would rise 20 degrees Celsius. The sort of thermal runaway that causes lithium-ion battery fires is simply impossible to happen.
Why do you think flow batteries haven’t taken off?
Flow batteries have so far been associated with vanadium-based flow batteries. A critical material, vanadium faces similar cost constraints and supply chain vulnerabilities as lithium-ion batteries. Almost 90% of vanadium comes from Russia or China.
Organic material changes the calculus. Quino Energy derives its battery material from chemical compounds found in oil and coal, which are readily available domestically. Our batteries can be sourced entirely from the U.S., from raw material to final battery material. Lithium-ion batteries can’t claim to be 100% U.S.-sourced. Plus, by using domestic fossil fuels as non-combusted battery ingredients, we’re enabling producers to reduce their emissions while preserving the livelihoods of their workers as the world transitions to clean energy.
Water-based flow batteries also beat vanadium flow batteries on sustainable scalability. Unlike vanadium flow batteries, they can reuse existing oil tanks, which are made to last decades but will increasingly sit unused as electrification gains steam. We can save on cost by repurposing oil tanks to store electricity instead of oil. Reusing existing oil tank stock will enable us to build more rapidly: the U.S. has enough tank capacity for 4 Terawatts of battery storage (400 gigawatt hours), compared to the 22 Terawatt hours it will need in 2050 and the <1 Terawatt of battery storage capacity present today. So just by repurposing existing resources, we can get a fair way towards our mid-century battery storage needs. And because those tanks currently hold hazardous chemicals, the people living nearby would likely support their transition to fire-safe battery storage – compared to the community opposition that lithium-ion battery installations commonly face today.
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Exploring the Future of Energy Storage: Why Flow Batteries are Gaining Ground Over Lithium-Ion – Batteries News interviews Quino Energy.
