Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Clean(S)tack (Automated production process for next-level redox flow battery stacks and modules following a revolutionary different and cost-optimised production approach)
Reporting period: 2023-02-01 to 2024-01-31
Renewables like wind and solar are not available 24/7 – that’s why technologies to store the energy are needed for post-fossil electricity systems. Redox flow batteries are perfectly suited for this task: they are not flammable, easy recyclable, they have a very long operation life time and offer the lowest costs per cycle. However, the initial investment costs (CAPEX) are still too high to be competitive against other storage technologies. The goal of the project Clean(S)tack is to develop components for redox flow batteries with much lower CAPEX to enable redox flow batteries to gain a higher market share.
During the project Clean(St)tack a cost-optimized redox flow module as a standardized unit for the use in larger energy storage installations is developed and tested. The idea is that this module can be used with various different electrolytes, e.g. vanadium electrolytes, organic active materials and others. VANEVO’s stack using an adhesive instead of conventional sealings to fulfil the numerous sealing tasks is used for the module. Additionally, a self-learning BMS adopting to the properties of different electrolytes is part of the module. An optimised and automated production process is developed during the project as well.
The energy storage industry needs low-cost, long-lasting and efficient energy storage technologies. While optimised, automatable stack concepts are one element to bring down the costs for redox flow batteries, there are additional aspects where costs need to be improved significantly. For example, there is a need for stable and efficient electrolytes based on cheap active materials like cheap and abundant metals or organic substances. Second, the potential to reduce costs of the materials used in stack is enormous when production gets to scale.