The rise of renewable energy has exposed a new problem: energy storage.
Solar and wind can generate very cheap electricity, but they’re intermittent. For entire grids to run on renewables, enormous amounts of storage are needed to avoid blackouts.
The two main options, pumped hydro and lithium-ion batteries, each have their drawbacks, such as high costs. Fortunately, there may be a third option.
A type of battery invented by an Australian professor in the 1980s has been growing in prominence, and is now being touted as part of the solution to this storage problem. Called a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), it’s cheaper, safer and longer-lasting than lithium-ion cells.
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.
