An international team of scientists is designing new redox flow batteries with longer life, higher power and energy density, in a more sustainable format.
The goal of the HIGREEW project is an organic flow battery with an LCOS of less than 0.05 euros/kWh/cycle.
A storage system that combines sustainability, profitability and high performance to facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources in current energy systems.
This is the goal of the international HIGREEW project. The research initiative, led by the Basque center CIC energiGUNE and financed by the European Commission with 3.8 million euros, has only one technology before its eyes: the organic flow battery, a rechargeable device equipped with water-soluble organic electrolytes with low cost.
The project consortium is made up of nine partners from five different EU countries. Together they will work on the design and development of batteries with high energy and power density, greater efficiency, longer life and, above all, with much lower costs than today.
The Autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Bohemia (Czech Republic) will collaborate with CIC energiGUNE in the development of key materials (membrane, electrolyte and electrode) to improve their technical performance, prolong their useful life and facilitate their recycling. These materials will be integrated into a cell to carry out the first validation tests of the British engineering company C-TECH, Czech Pinflow, specialized in vanadium flow batteries.
In 2021, the integration of all the developments into a real prototype will begin, designed in collaboration between Heights and Gamesa Electric, which will be tested and validated in one of Gamesa’s Spanish facilities.
Within three years, the new organic flow battery must have a Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) of less than €0.10 per kWh over its lifetime.
In this way, the value should reach 0.05 euros / kWh / cycle in 2030, which is the technical-economic objective set by Brussels in its European Strategic Energy Technology Plan for the decarbonisation process.
One of the objectives of HIGREEW is also to demonstrate that organic flow batteries can be a sustainable alternative to vanadium, a material included by the European Commission in the list of essential raw materials.
More information: www.cicenergigune.com
