In what could be an important breakthrough in South Africa''s transition to EV''s (electric vehicles), the technology described below could hold enormous promise.
Forgetting for a moment the two negative aspects of EV''s in SA – initial cost and how the government will ''reclaim'' lost fuel revenues amounting to hundreds of billions of Rands, the role out of charging infrastructure particularly in rural areas and Eskom''s inability to provide a stable electricity supply, could be addressed in whole or in part by this Australian development. Ed.
They claim it can handle all the requirements of EV charging but can also be scaled up to suit a wide range of projects, from residential through to large grid-scale industrial and agricultural needs.
"The VRFB''s long life, exceeding 20 years, makes it one of the most sustainable and long-lasting ways of storing renewable energy. At the end of the battery''s mechanical life, the vanadium electrolyte can be reused indefinitely."
VSUN Energy, the renewable energy generation and storage subsidiary of Perth-based Australian Vanadium Limited, is collaborating with its Singaporean partner V-Flow Tech and EV specialists Gemtek on the project.
ASX-listed AVL is developing the Australian Vanadium Project south of Meekatharra. The Australian Vanadium Project is more than a vanadium mine, comprising a value chain spanning mining, manufacturing and downstream processing.
AVL Managing Director Vincent Algar said the initiative is part of the company''s strategy to further develop the market for the battery storage technology in Australia and elsewhere.
"The intent is for Australian Vanadium to not just sell vanadium into the metals sector internationally, but to be fully vertically integrated onshore here in Australia. In doing so, we are able to reduce the cost of these batteries while adding local value, content and job creation," said Mr Algar.
"While we are still in the development phase of the mining project, we are building a vanadium electrolyte manufacturing facility near Kwinana, which is expected to be in production by mid-2022 with an annual production of 33MWh.
The new factory is located in Cape Town and established in close partnership with American Tower Corporation (ATC) in Africa. With a yearly production potential of more than 300,000 batteries, the facility further increases Polarium''s presence in sub-Saharan Africa.
After having been strategic partners since 2017, ATC Africa signed a multimillion-dollar lithium-ion battery bulk purchase agreement with Polarium in 2021, securing thousands of lithium-powered backup solutions for ATC Africa''s markets over the coming years. This deepened partnership has enabled Polarium to establish a new factory in South Africa, which when fully operational will be able to produce more than 300,000 batteries per year, equivalent to 4 Gigawatt hours.
"The inauguration of our South African manufacturing facility is yet another milestone for Polarium, and a continuation of our longstanding strategic partnership with ATC. Not only will we increase our worldwide manufacturing capacity, but we will also increase our operational agility and bring production closer to our end-markets and customers on the African continent." says Stefan Jansson, CEO of Polarium.
In sub-Saharan Africa, a significant number of wireless telecommunication sites lack access to a reliable power grid infrastructure and have historically relied on diesel generators or lead batteries for backup power. By switching to Polarium''s solutions, ATC Africa has since 2018 been able to reduce its scope 1 emissions and reliance on fossil fuels by more than 50 percent. And through the establishment of a factory in Cape Town, South Africa, Polarium and ATC Africa will enable accelerated transition to a more sustainable telecom tower infrastructure.
"Partnering with Polarium enables us to harness renewable energy sources more effectively in furtherance of our sustainability strategy and progress our commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2035 in line with science-based targets. The partnership also supports the Government of South Africa''s goal of adding more renewable sources to its energy mix and decreasing its dependence on coal by 2030" says Anne Mclaren at ATC Africa.
The factory will be powered by a combination of solar power and Polarium''s energy storage solutions, making it a net-positive contributor to the South African energy grid. More than 200 people will be directly employed in the factory, with additional job opportunities created for subcontractors.
American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of over 220,000 communications sites spanning 25 countries and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities. For more information about American Tower, please visit the "Earnings Materials" and "Investor Presentations" sections of our investor relations website at
Developed by US startup ESS, the device is known as an iron flow battery. The airport is currently trialling the technology to power some of its electric ground power units. These machines provide electricity to parked planes to run systems such as lights, avionics, and air conditioning.
But why is Schiphol betting on this lesser-known type of energy storage instead of mature lithium-ion batteries? The answer can be traced back over four decades to a lab in Cleveland, Ohio.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University developed the first iron flow battery in the early 1980s. But the idea remained confined to the shelves of academia. At a time when oil was cheap, developing long-duration energy storage wasn''t a top priority.
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However, when chemical engineers Craig Evans and Julia Song stumbled across the Case Western research 30 years later, the energy landscape looked very different. Massive wind and solar plants were coming online. For the first time, electricity supplies became, to some extent, dependent on the highly unpredictable patterns of the wind and the sun.
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