China has just installed a flow battery with the highest energy storage capacity in the world on its power grid. The technology has a capacity of 100 MW.

Last week, China connected to its electrical grid the flow battery with the highest power and energy storage capacity in the world ever produced. The flow battery, called Dalian, has a capacity of 100 MW, which will be used to buffer the peaks and valleys of renewable energy generation, providing energy at a constant level even when the wind is not driving the wind turbines, or at night when the painéis solares generate energy.

China's energy storage project could reach 800 MWh

The flow battery project was developed by the professor's group at the Institute of Physical Chemistry Dalian Xianfeng Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the system was created and integrated by Rongke Power Co.

The step that has now been inaugurated by the scientists is just the first, to demonstrate the energy storage large-scale chemistry. The complete project should reach 200 Megawatts or 800 megawatt-hours of electricity.

In this first stage, the battery capacity is 100 MW/ 400 MWh. Based on China's average daily electricity consumption of 2kWh per capita, the flow battery will be able to meet the energy needs of 200 people per day, thus reducing pressure on power supply during peak periods and improving the reliability of the power supply.

Energy storage technology can help power systems meet peak demands, and is also particularly critical to facilitating sustainable energy use.

Flow battery uses vanadium for energy storage

The Dalian facility in China uses the technology of energy storage vanadium flow battery. As electricity is chemically stored in tanks, expanding long-term storage capacity is merely a matter of adding more tanks, thus this technology is also called fill-up battery.

The flow battery works through a reversible process called intercalation, where charged zinc ions are positively oxidized on the negative zinc metal electrode, travel through the electrolyte, and insert themselves between layers of vanadium oxide. This generates a flow of electrons in the external circuit developing an electric current.

During charging, the reverse process occurs. This is a well-known and relatively simple technology, however it is not considered the most environmentally friendly due to its chemically aggressive compounds.

Aneel approves first energy storage project in Brazil

The National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) approved last year the first large-scale lithium battery energy storage project in the Brazilian transmission system.

The initiative is led by Isa Cteep, who will invest around R$ 146 million in a 30 MW energy storage system that will be installed at the Registro (SP) substation, which aims to supply the south coast of São Paulo.