US Vanadium announced an expanded purchase agreement under which Austrian-based Enerox, which sells vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) systems under its brand name CellCube, can purchase up to 3 million additional liters/year of US Vanadium’s ultra-high-purity electrolyte with a price cap over the next five years. The agreement boosts the initial purchase agreement for 580,000 liters/year of US Vanadium electrolyte, announced in September 2021.
The ultra-high-purity electrolyte helps to increase the performance and efficiency of VRFB battery systems, which are seeing increased use as storage for microgrids. US Vanadium is capable of producing up to 4 million liter/year of the electrolyte at its Arkansas manufacturing facility. The agreement with Enerox is believed to be one of the largest such procurements of ultra-high-purity electrolyte by a VRFB electrolyte producer outside China, the company reports.
“This agreement reflects today’s rapidly accelerating growth of the vanadium redox flow battery industry and of US Vanadium’s ability to supply VRFB manufacturers with Made-in-America ultra-high-purity electrolyte,” said US Vanadium CEO Mark A. Smith.
With the expansion of the microgrid market in the US, VRFB energy storage systems are in high demand. According to the U.S. Energy Department, VRF technology has several upsides including the potential to store MWh of power in simple designs, the ability to discharge power for up to 12 hours at a time, and the fact that VRF batteries do not present a fire hazard and use no highly reactive or toxic substances, can sit idle for long periods of time without losing storage capacity, and more. A key CellCube reference, just being installed in the US as part of a resilient and sustainable microgrid, has been the kick-off project for the cooperation with USV. To date CellCube has installed energy storage systems at 130 sites worldwide.
