Vanadium battery energy storage investment cost

Vanadium leasing, whereby a third-party company leases the vanadium, usually in the form of VRFB electrolyte, to a battery vendor or end-user is a proposed solution beginning to gain market traction.

The 2020 Cost and Performance Assessment provided installed costs for six energy storage technologies: lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, lead-acid batteries, vanadium redox flow batteries, pumped storage hydro, compressed-air energy storage, and hydrogen energy storage.

Investment considerations (i.e., battery sizing, electrolyte leasing) are evaluated. Demonstrates the need for both capital and levelized costs as comparative metrics. Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are an emerging technology suitable for grid electricity storage.

For leasing to be an attractive option as compared to upfront purchase, vanadium prices must be sufficiently high and/or annual fees must be suitably low. At the time of writing, the price of vanadium pentoxide is ca. 16 $ kg −1 , which corresponds to 29 $ kg −1 of vanadium.

In 2018, in addition to the growth of the VRFB market, demand for vanadium rose after the creation of new Chinese rebar standards for steel that mandated an increase in the vanadium content . Simultaneously, supply dropped as various vendors halted or fully shut down production due to ongoing environmental inspections and project closures .

Vanadium use is primarily limited to a single market, the production of steel, which accounts for about 90% of demand, and only China, Russia, and, most recently, South Africa are major exporters .