Solar power only works during the day, and wind turbines only produce electricity when they are spinning, so energy storage is necessary to provide a reliable renewable power grid that eliminates the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that the current fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) power grid emits.
Storing electrical energy is usually accomplished by a reversible chemical reaction inside a battery. Lithium-ion batteries have become the poster child for energy storage for everything from cell phones and personal electronics, to electric vehicles (EV), to grid-scale storage of energy from renewable sources like solar and wind. But batteries based upon lithium aren’t the only option, and when there is a need to store huge amounts of power, at a single stationary location, at a relatively low price, the answer more and more frequently is the flow battery.
Instead of placing all of the reactive parts of the battery in one container, as in a lithium-ion cell, a flow battery stores reactive electrolyte liquids in separate containers and pumps them through a reactor tank that contains a stack of inert electrodes that strip electrons out of the electrolyte solution to produce electric power.
Ferro-Alloy Resources Ltd (LON:FAR) is developing the giant Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in Kyzylordinskaya oblast of southern Kazakhstan. The ore at this deposit is unlike that of nearly all other primary vanadium deposits and is capable of being treated by a much lower cost process.
