Development of vanadium redox flow battery for electricity storage

There is serious demand today for superior technology for load levelling placed on power generation and transmission facilities. The vanadium battery, developed by Kashima-Kita, uses vanadium compounds as an electrolyte, recovered from boiler soot in Orimulsion-fired power stations to provide a solution to this problem. This battery is eminently suitable for load levelling, being operable at room temperature and normal pressure, easily convertible to a large scale and is environmentally friendly. In September 1997, Kashima-Kita built a 200 kW/spl times/4 hour-rate battery after having built both 2 kW and 10 kW prototype units. The battery is interconnected to the company's power plant grid system and has to date achieved 650 cycle continuous operation at the rated efficiency. This success has proved that a high-efficiency heat power station system equipped with such an electricity storage battery reusing byproducts of the power plant can be commercially viable.