Will vanadium batteries appear? Need supporters to create a market!

Vanadium requires another important player in the Iron Mask or global battery market to support metals in order to share the center stage with other energy storage components such as lithium and cobalt.

"When we got that moment, we were going to participate in the competition," Vincent Algar, managing director of the Australian Vanadium Company, said in an interview at the Hong Kong Mining Conference. The industry needs Tesla or Panasonic to say: "We like vanadium flow batteries, and we want to make them in addition to lithium-ion batteries," he said.

Last year, the world's largest lithium-ion battery was installed in Australia for a record time, after billionaire Musk succeeded in betting that he could deploy the Tesla technology to make up for the supply gap and help solve the energy crisis in the Pacific countries.

Vanadium, which is mainly used in steelmaking, can also be used in industrial-scale batteries, which helps balance the daily peaks and valleys of renewable energy such as wind energy. According to data from the BMO capital market, the shift to green energy may create a new market and begin to compete for supply.

Algar said that the vanadium flow battery is rugged enough to operate at various temperatures and does not degrade internally. He hopes that at least 20% of the company's Gabanintha project in Western Australia will enter the battery market.

Due to the surge in demand from China, the world's largest steel producer, stocks are falling and prices have been rising since the mid-2016.

Algar said the pre-feasibility study is expected to be completed by mid-2018, and the company will start financing and building its plant in mid-2019 with a capital expenditure of A$350 million (US$270 million). He said production may begin in early 2021.

Australian Vanadium Corporation expects production to be approximately 5,000-6,000 tons, accounting for 5%-6% of the global market share, while vanadium pentoxide (a powdered metal) produces more than 10,000 tons.

The main form of energy storage is lithium-ion technology, but vanadium flow batteries have their advantages. This allows for longer periods of time and can be recharged and discharged without significantly degrading performance. They are also easy to recycle and apply to projects where space is not an issue.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the use of vanadium flow batteries is hampered by material and maintenance costs as well as low energy density, requiring more room to store energy than alternative chemicals.

Algar said on April 6 that it is still difficult to get approval for vanadium. "Trying to sell vanadium flow batteries to a person who can only think of lithium, he only thinks that having lithium battery can solve the world's problems, it is very difficult."

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