Vanadium could be the answer to using solar and wind round the clock, potentially silencing critics who say the technologies are useless when the sun doesn’t shine and breeze isn’t blowing.
So-called flow batteries may be more expensive up front but last for decades, don’t catch fire and can store and dispatch sunshine for 10 to 18 hours – in contrast, the backers say, to rows of lithium-ion batteries springing up around the country are handy backup to meet peak energy demand for a few hours at a time.
Non-flammable, vanadium flow batteries can be stacked up at utility scale and offer more flexibility in where they are built compared to pumped hydro energy storage.
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.
