some thoughts from John Meyer, mining analyst, SP Angel, The analyst's view:
"Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) represent a breakthrough in this field, and come with advantages over commercially-available energy storage technologies such as non-combustibility, modular design and scalability. While commercialisation of VRFBs is an accelerating sub-sector of the energy storage market, mass adoption has been limited due to elevated capital costs of battery manufacture. Due to their low energy density (up to five times less than lithium-ion examples), VRFBs are not suitable for mobile applications, but are useful in load levelling at power stations, peak shaving for industrial users and storage for renewable sources of energy. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, their degradation is limited.
Consequently, battery-grade vanadium demand may be considered a market function of global energy storage capacity. Citigroup presents one of the more bullish cases, forecasting VFRB capturing up to 400GW by 2030. The expansive trajectory indicates that the global energy storage market will double more than six times between 2016 and 2030, while deployed capacity will be focused across eight countries; with 70 per cent capacity split across the US, China, Japan, India, Germany, the UK, Australia and South Korea.
Forecasts from Navigant and Boston Consulting Group expect VRFBs to capture 15-25 per cent of the market, although superior cost reduction potential of the technology is expected to drive the market share significantly higher. Lazard's analysis concludes that VRFBs already demonstrated the lowest 'levelized' costs across the sector in 2017. Mass adoption of commercial systems such as those developed by UniEnergy Technologies and Bushveld Minerals should assist with the penetration of VRFBs into the fledgling market".
TNO Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
