Flow batteries are "anti-lithium" in the energy storage market?

"No appointment, no appointment at all."

"Flow batteries are too popular now, and there are too many investment institutions that want to participate in the project. Recently, my team has made more than 70 or 80 phone calls to enterprises, and added many WeChat. Only a handful of enterprises are willing to talk about it."

When it comes to the experience of signing a bill with a flow battery company, Xiao Rao is helpless and suffocating, "somewhat humble.". Those who get the contact information can't add it; those who add the chat don't reply; it's not easy to reply, but the result is'the last round has just been melted, and the next round has been set, and then contact '.

But from another point of view, energy storage enterprises also have their own "difficulties". An all-vanadium redox flow battery manufacturer said, "At the recent China International Energy Storage Conference, in just three days, we met with no less than 20 investment institutions, including large government industrial funds and well-known VCs, which really can not be seen."

Investment and financing has always been the vane of industry development. Since this year, large-scale financing in the field of flow batteries has been disclosed.

First, in March this year, zinc-iron flow battery manufacturer Weijing Energy Storage announced the completion of 600 million yuan a round of financing, followed by all-vanadium flow battery leader Dalian Rongke announced the completion of more than 1 billion yuan B + round of financing in April, and began to sprint IPO.

In addition, flow battery start-ups such as Xingchen Xinneng, Flow Energy Storage Technology and Juan Energy Storage have just finished or are in the process of new financing. Most of these enterprises, which have been established for less than two years, have undoubtedly stood in the wind.

According to statistics, the flow battery track has absorbed more than 2 billion yuan in the first five months of this year, and the total amount of financing exceeds the total amount of funds received in the field of long-term energy storage in 2022. Zheng Xiaohao, general manager of Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology, told "Jiazi Lightyear", "At present, the financing of start-ups in the whole industry is around the A-round, with similar valuations, ranging from 800 million to 900 million yuan. As enterprises win more storage projects, the valuation will be higher." Since

this year, flow batteries have become a key force in the long-term energy storage market because of their long cycle life, high safety and wide application scenarios, and their market share has been rising. According to incomplete statistics, the scale of flow batteries under construction and new tenders in the last ten months alone has exceeded the total installed capacity of the past ten years by several times.

This trend is more ferocious than strong pull up on the K-line chart.

The flow battery industry has never developed at such a speed as it does today. The high-speed influx of people, money and goods is pushing this new track to the window of industrialization. Various technical paths of flow batteries, such as all-vanadium, zinc-iron and iron-chromium, have appeared in representative enterprises, and their production capacity has exceeded hundreds of megawatts. The flow battery industry has come to the GW era and stands in front of the window of industrialization.

However, there is still a certain distance between the flow battery industry and the real industrialization, large-scale production and landing. There are still many difficulties for them: the initial installation cost is high, which is daunting for investors; the technology is not mature enough, and the utilization rate of electrolyte and the efficiency of the stack need to be improved; the industrial chain is not perfect, the supply of raw materials in the upstream is not sufficient, and the number of calls by the power grid in the downstream is not sufficient.. In the face of many difficulties, the flow battery enterprises are trying their best to break the situation. Zhao Tianshou, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "This year will be a key year for the turning point of the flow battery industry."

In order to clarify the current development status of the flow battery industry and clarify the difficulties faced by the industry. "Jiazi Lightyear" interviewed more than ten investors, entrepreneurs and researchers in the industry, trying to record the key turning point of this emerging industry, and combining with the industry's difficult problems, to present the way to break the situation of the leading enterprises.

Flow battery, "anti-lithium battery"?

On May 10, the Hubei Development and Reform Commission announced the list of pilot demonstration projects to be included in the new energy storage power station in Hubei Province in 2023. The list contains 21 projects, and the scale of the pilot demonstration projects to be purchased is 1GW (million KW).

Unusually, none of the items on the list are equipped with lithium-ion batteries alone, but with flow batteries on a large scale. In the bidding demand, the total scale of flow batteries with three technical paths of vanadium, iron and zinc reaches 480 MW (1MW = 1000 KW), accounting for 48% of the total scale of the project.

According to the average energy storage time of 3 hours, 2.

You know, although flow batteries are popular, their market share in the energy storage track has not been conspicuous for a long time. According to the data of China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, the installed capacity of new energy storage in China in 2022 is 6.9 GW, of which the proportion of liquid flow batteries is only 3.5%, and the scale is only 241.

It mainly includes lithium-ion batteries, flow batteries, lead-acid batteries, compressed air energy storage, gravity energy storage and so on. In the past, lithium batteries were the absolute leader in the field of new energy storage, with a market share of about 94%.

At present, flow batteries are moving from the "edge" of the energy storage track to the center of the stage, and are "anti-lithium" in many energy storage projects. In March

this year, the State Energy Administration issued the Twenty-five Key Requirements for Preventing Power Production Accidents (2023 Edition), which emphasized the safety requirements for medium and large electrochemical energy storage power stations and basically limited the types of battery technologies available for power stations. The Requirements make it clear that lithium-ion batteries should not be located in densely populated places, and that water-based flow batteries with intrinsic safety should be classified as the key development direction.

One advance and one retreat, the change appears. The key incentive for

this change is the further explosion of long-term energy storage demand, as well as the further improvement of power plant security and capacity scalability requirements.

For energy storage, the fundamental reason for its existence is to further solve the problem of fluctuation of wind power and photovoltaic power generation in different time periods, such as day and night, four seasons, while responding quickly to the demand for frequency modulation of the grid, and to coordinate with the grid to regulate power consumption and power generation, so as to promote the high proportion of wind power and photovoltaic power connected to the grid.

At present, China's energy storage market is dominated by short-term energy storage systems with energy storage duration between 2 and 4 hours, with a market share of more than 92%. Wang Zeshen, Secretary-General of China Chemical and Physical Power Association, believes that "short-term energy storage can not meet the energy storage needs of power system across days, months, seasons and years, and it is difficult to solve the economic problem of matching supply and demand in peak and valley periods.". This requires the construction of long-term energy storage technology with energy storage time of more than 4 hours.

The study shows that compared with short-term energy storage, long-term energy storage is more conducive to reducing the rate of wind and light curtailment, and is more cost-effective . The National Renewable Energy Laboratory of

the United States has calculated that when the energy storage system lasts for 4 to 8 hours, the rate of wind and light curtailment in the grid can be controlled. CITIC Securities has also estimated that by 2050, the cost per kilowatt hour of a power system without long-term energy storage will be about 24% higher than that of a power system with long-term energy storage.

According to the national "14th Five-Year Plan", by 2025, the proportion of new energy generation in total power generation will reach about 39%, and the proportion of new energy consumption will increase to about 20%. Improving the level of wind and solar power consumption is just needed, in this context, long-term energy storage in the near future ushered in an outbreak. Among the bidding projects in

Hubei, there are 14 projects with clear energy storage duration, of which 5 projects with planned duration of more than 4 hours.

In addition to the bidding meeting in Hubei Province, other places such as Xizang and Xinjiang, the average time of storage allocation in 2022 has exceeded 3 hours, and a large number of construction projects focusing on long-term energy storage have emerged this year. Energy state-owned enterprises, such as China Energy Construction and Huaneng Group, have also issued a large number of tenders for long-term energy storage projects this year. Although at present, 2-hour energy storage is still the main body of the market, the market structure is obviously changing.

This will be a trillion-dollar market. "Starting from 2023, the proportion of energy storage demand for more than 3 hours will gradually increase from less than 8% to more than 60%, and the duration will gradually increase," Ye Wanrou, director of Yiwei Energy Storage Marketing Department, told "Jiazi Lightyear". McKinsey has predicted that by 2040, the cumulative installed capacity of long-term energy storage in the world will reach 1.5 to 2.

Under the outbreak of long-term energy storage demand, flow battery is one of the most competitive technologies. Long

energy storage time inevitably requires batteries to be more "storable", with large capacity and convenient expansion. The flow battery stack and the electrolyte can be separated, that is, the power and capacity units can be decoupled, the expandability is good, the configuration is flexible, and the expansion can be realized only by simple stacking. But the lithium battery is not good, the lithium battery power and the capacity unit are integrated, if you want to increase the capacity, you need to re-install a whole set of systems, the additional cost will be higher. Wang Shan (a pseudonym) of the

State Grid Power Dispatching and Control Center also made an interpretation: "In the field of long-term energy storage, lithium-ion batteries lack competitive advantages because of the higher risk of explosion during high-frequency and long-term dispatching.". Flow batteries are one of the most suitable technologies for long-term energy storage because of their intrinsic safety and zero risk of explosion, so they will get more opportunities to try."

For energy storage, safety, economy and sustainability are the three key indicators," said Zhou Xuan, marketing director of Xingchen Xinneng. Safety is the advantage of liquid flow over lithium power, while economy is manifested in long life, low life cycle cost, low capacity expansion cost and more convenient construction site, which is the advantage of liquid flow over compressed air energy storage, lead-acid, pumped storage and so on.

Government project bidding is a barometer of the development of energy storage industry. It not only reflects the development speed of the industry, but more importantly, it can highlight the size of the cake divided by different sub-tracks under the multi-energy storage path. In Hubei bidding, four of the five long-term energy storage projects are liquid flow energy storage power stations.

Flow batteries are "replacing" lithium batteries into the spotlight. "This year is the key year. The market structure of energy storage demand monopolized by lithium-ion batteries has been shaken, and the huge market space is being released. Flow batteries may be the first energy storage technology to enjoy this" cake ". However, it is worth noting that the relationship between flow batteries and lithium batteries is not a zero-sum game that replaces each other at present, the market is an incremental market, and it will be more common for multiple technical routes to build a project together. "But anyway, the opportunity has come," said a person in charge of an all-vanadium flow battery company. With the arrival of

market opportunities, all parts of the country are setting off a "flow battery construction fever".

China's flow battery industry started around 2007. According to the data of the State Energy Department, in the past ten years, the total installed capacity of liquid flow batteries in China is only about 140MW. In the last six months, state-owned energy enterprises such as China Nuclear Huineng and State Power Investment Corporation, in conjunction with local governments such as Xinjiang, Xizang, Hubei and Hebei, have launched large-scale flow battery project construction plans with a scale of hundreds of megawatts. According to incomplete statistics, the scale of flow batteries under construction and newly tendered in the last 10 months has exceeded the total installed capacity in the past ten years.

The flow battery industry has never expanded and developed at such a speed today. The exponential increase of landing projects has led to the investment of real gold and silver. Since 2023, the flow battery track has ushered in the peak of investment and financing.

For example, Weijing Energy Storage reached 600 million yuan A round financing in March this year, Dalian Rongke completed more than 1 billion yuan B + round financing in April, and announced the start of sprint IPO; Xingchen Xinneng disclosed that it will complete tens of millions of yuan Pre-A round financing in the near future; Kerun New Materials, Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology, Juan Energy Storage and other enterprises have just finished or are in the process of new financing. According to incomplete

statistics, the flow battery track has absorbed far more than 2 billion yuan in the first five months of this year, and the total amount of financing exceeds the total amount of funds received in the field of long-term energy storage in 2022. With

large-scale bidding, large-scale investment and long-term demand for energy storage construction, the flow battery track seems to have taken advantage of the wind. Since the energy storage market urgently needs to build a long-term energy storage system before

the

initial installation cost, why has the energy storage system within 2 hours always been the main body of the market for a long time? At present, because of the high cost of flow batteries, the economic account is not bright.

Life cycle cost is an important index to calculate the rate of return of a project. According to Guotai Junan data, in 2021, the service life of flow batteries is longer than that of lithium batteries. 2

. Wait longer, earn less money, economic accounts do not understand, the market demand for flow batteries is naturally limited.

With the progress of technology and the expansion of production, the life cycle cost of flow batteries has been declining in the past two years. Yang Linlin, Director of Energy Storage Flow Battery Products Department of Central Research Institute of Shanghai Electric Group, told "Jiazi Lightyear", "According to 25 years of service life and 4 hours of energy storage, at least 30% of the residual value of vanadium flow batteries can be recovered after the end of their life cycle.

According to Huang Bibin, deputy director of the New Energy Institute of the State Grid Energy Research Institute, the current life cycle cost per kilowatt hour of lithium batteries is about 0.5 yuan/KWh, while the cost of pumped storage is 0. After two years of development, the life cycle economic account of flow batteries has been better than that of lithium batteries and pumped storage.

But only the whole life cycle cost is still not enough. According to Xiao Rao, most of the domestic investment institutions, the conventional investment payback period is generally about 5 to 7 years, while in the field of energy storage, the dynamic investment payback period can only reach 10 years. "At present, if the flow battery wants to calculate the cost advantage, it will take more than 20 years." Investment institutions may not be able to afford to wait. If flow batteries want to develop, it is necessary to further reduce the initial installation cost.

In particular, there are many paths on the flow battery track, and the high cost is easy to make investors afraid. Liu Erhai, founding and executive partner of Pleasure Capital, said, "Which technology route can run out is too uncertain, VC can only boldly assume, carefully verify, and explore the possibility of industrialization.".

The initial installation cost is the cost of the project in the installation and construction stage, and is the starting threshold of the project. Zheng Xiaohao, general manager of

liquid flow energy storage technology, said that at present, the initial installation cost of a 100-megawatt liquid flow battery project is basically 2. By contrast, the initial installation cost of lithium batteries ranges from 1.2 to 2.4 yuan/Wh, while the average bidding price of two-hour energy storage system is 1.

This year, the overall quotation of energy storage projects has dropped significantly, and the weighted average quotation of 2-hour energy storage system has dropped by nearly 10%.

Xiaotao said, "At present, the price of lithium ore has been falling, from 600000 yuan/ton last year to nearly 150000 yuan/ton in April this year, so the cost of lithium energy storage continues to decline.". In contrast, the disadvantage of high initial installation cost of flow batteries is becoming more and more obvious. Because of the different nature of products, the initial installation cost of flow batteries is bound to be higher than that of lithium batteries, but at least to the extent that investment institutions can easily accept it.

At present, the high start-up threshold has become the key to restrict the industrialization of flow batteries.

A complete set of flow battery mainly comprises a galvanic pile and an electrolyte, wherein the galvanic pile is a power unit and is mainly used for inputting and outputting electric power, and the electrolyte is a capacity unit and is mainly used for storing the electric power. In addition, the flow battery also needs to be equipped with a control system.

Many flow battery companies told "Jiazi Lightyear" that at present, finding ways to reduce the initial installation cost of batteries has become one of the core objectives of enterprise development. The cost of electrolyte and stack, a pair of "dual-power" systems, is becoming the main battlefield for enterprises to "fight hard" for the initial installation cost. One of the

"dual-power"

solutions is to reduce costs and increase efficiency through technological progress, of which two key indicators are electrolyte energy density and stack energy efficiency. Higher electrolyte energy density means less electrolyte required to store each kilowatt-hour of electricity; higher energy efficiency means less loss of electricity. For the concept of

energy efficiency, for example, "80% energy efficiency means that the input of 1 kilowatt-hour electricity can only correspond to the output of 0.8 kilowatt-hour electricity, so for liquid flow batteries that make money by power input and output, high energy efficiency not only means that they can achieve greater energy storage with fewer devices." It also means that the power station can make more money. An effective way

to improve the energy density of electrolyte is to increase the concentration of electrolyte. Domestic research institutes and enterprises with advanced electrolyte preparation technology for liquid flow batteries include Dalian Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Puneng Century, Shanghai Electric Energy Storage, Central South University, etc. Liu Suqin, a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of

Central South University and chief scientist of Xingchen Xinneng, told "Jiazi Lightyear", "By using patented technologies such as electrolyte activation, my team can now increase the concentration of electrolyte to 2."

At present, the electrolyte concentration of all-vanadium electrolyte tap in China is about 1.5 ~ 2. According to the calculation of Everbright Securities, the energy density of vanadium electrolyte is between 12 ~ 40 Wh/kg.

In addition to energy density, it is also important to improve electrolyte utilization. Zhao Tianshou, a professor at Southern University of Science and Technology and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "Even the most mature all-vanadium redox flow battery has only 60% electrolyte utilization, that is to say, the remaining 40% of vanadium is not well utilized." Zhao Tianshou's prescription is to increase the intensity of current in the system, "to increase the current density, that is, power density, so as to improve the utilization rate of electrolyte and reduce costs, which should be the common goal of the industry."

In addition, improving the energy efficiency of the stack is an effective means to optimize the cost of the stack, and is also the key to whether the flow battery can settle the economic account. Optimizing energy efficiency indicators has become the key to the development of flow battery enterprises.

Zheng Xiaohao introduced that the energy efficiency of the all-vanadium flow battery stack of the flow energy storage technology is about 78%; while Meng Jintao, CEO of the iron-based flow battery representative company Ju'an Technology, said that the efficiency of the all-iron flow battery stack and the system efficiency of the company are both above 80%. The representative company

of zinc-iron flow battery is Weijing Energy Storage, but the company did not disclose any data related to energy efficiency and energy density. The number of domestic enterprises related to zinc-based flow batteries is introduced, and their new progress can be referred to overseas enterprises. According to the latest data from ZBB Company in the United States, the energy efficiency of zinc-bromine flow battery stack can reach 82%.

Dalian Rongke, as the industry leader, in 2013, the energy efficiency of its 5MW all-vanadium liquid flow battery system has reached 80%. At the end of December last year, the company's largest grid-connected liquid flow battery energy storage power station in China, the 100 MW "Dalian Liquid Flow Battery Energy Storage Peak Shaving Power Station National Demonstration Project", was launched. The system efficiency can reach 76%. The research results of

Central South University can also represent the advanced level of the industry. Professor Liu Suqin said that by optimizing the electrode material, diaphragm material and stack structure, the energy efficiency of the all-vanadium redox flow battery stack "Xingchen 1" has reached 85%.

It is worth noting that when it comes to battery performance, there is no uniform statement in the industry. Xiaotao told Jiazi Lightyear, "For example, electrolyte energy density is disclosed by unit volume, by unit mass, and by electrolyte concentration only.". Under different units, the technological capabilities of enterprises may be completely different.

Xiaotao also said, "Energy efficiency is the same, which should be divided into stack efficiency and system efficiency.". High stack efficiency does not mean high battery charge-discharge conversion rate, because it also needs to calculate the losses caused by other parts of the system. However, the data disclosed by many enterprises are stack. In addition, a considerable number of enterprises will release laboratory efficiency, and the reliability of this data needs to be tested by mass production. The reason for

this phenomenon is also very simple, Wang Shan said, "Many flow battery start-ups have just passed the pilot stage (small-scale test before large-scale production of products), mass production is only planned and under construction, and batch delivery has not yet been achieved.". The industry is at such a stage that even the leading companies with mass production data will want to observe the performance of their peers again.

He further pointed out, "What's more, some technologies, such as zinc-iron flow batteries, are indeed slightly inferior in efficiency indicators, so in the absence of commercial results, only than technical data, some companies are reluctant to disclose relevant information publicly." The industry is in the early stage of development, and we should be patient with technological progress. "We also need to see that technical indicators are not the only criterion to measure the ability of enterprises. Business models, power plant operation and maintenance capabilities, mass production and engineering capabilities are equally important." In June

last year, Li Xianfeng's team at Dalian Institute of Chemistry published a paper saying that the energy efficiency of iron-based batteries is relatively low, about 10% lower than that of all-vanadium batteries, and that of zinc-iron flow batteries is even lower. According to statistics, the system efficiency of flow batteries is usually lower than stack efficiency. 1. According to "Jiazi Lightyear", at present, the battery system efficiency of flow battery enterprises after mass production can reach more than 75%, which is not bad. As

for stack cost reduction, in addition to optimizing energy efficiency, another important direction is to reduce the cost of diaphragm. The main function of the flow battery separator is to prevent the positive and negative electrolytes from mixing while conducting electricity. Its performance is mainly reflected in the service life and proton conductivity, the former tests the durability, while the latter determines the current transmission efficiency. The optimization direction of

this component is mainly domestic substitution. At present, China's battery separator mainly uses Nafion membrane produced by DuPont Company of the United States, which is the standard membrane of all-vanadium redox flow battery, and the related technology is monopolized by foreign countries, and the price is high.

According to Liu Suqin, the preparation cost of Nafion 212 diaphragm with a thickness of 50.8 μm is 2100 ~ 2800 yuan per square meter, which is equivalent to 1.8 ~ 2 yuan per 100 MW.

The leading optimization method in the industry is proposed by Dalian Chemical Institute. Zhang Huamin, a researcher at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, said that the weldable porous ion conducting membrane independently developed by his team could reduce the use area of membrane materials by 30%, and reduce the cost of diaphragm preparation per square meter to less than 100 yuan, thus reducing the total cost of the stack by 40%.

Liu Suqin's team has also made new progress. Compared with Nafion212 membrane, the non-fluorine ion-conducting membrane they developed has higher conductivity and longer life. "It can achieve domestic substitution and help reshape the domestic supply chain.". Its cost is low, with a thickness of 50 μm, the cost per square meter is only 500 to 800 yuan, and the preparation cost of 100 MW is 40 million to 60 million yuan. Compared with Nafion 212, the cost reduction is as high as 76%.

At present, the flow battery track path is diverse and a hundred schools of thought contend. Technology is not yet mature, production has not yet started, even if all the time in progress, uncertainty is still obvious. Liu Erhai told Jiazi Lightyear, "Entrepreneurship is an adventure, and the value of entrepreneurs to society is to eliminate this uncertainty." Multiple paths correspond to multiple racers, and the industry is becoming complete step by step in the hands of these racers.

In 2019, Li Xianfeng's team predicted that by 2035, the key indicators for liquid flow batteries to meet the national strategy are that the efficiency of GW liquid flow battery system is greater than 75% and the number of cycles is greater than 1.

2. With the continuous optimization of the technological capabilities of enterprises and the continuous improvement of the industrial chain, the cost of flow batteries has a significant space to reduce, and it is only one step away from the real realization of industrial development.

At the 13th China International Energy Storage Conference held recently, the long-term energy storage forum first appeared in the form of an independent sub-forum, and the protagonist of this long-term energy storage forum is the flow battery. Weijing Energy Storage, Juan Energy Storage, Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology, Metal Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences and many other liquid flow battery enterprises and research institutes are gathered here. Yu Chong, deputy general manager of liquid flow energy storage technology, was very happy to

participate in the conference. "I feel that the technical exchanges in the liquid flow industry are becoming more and more open and frequent. Just now I talked with Meng Zong of Ju'an and planned to hold an exchange and cooperation meeting with colleagues." This is a long-awaited excitement. "The industry is at a critical moment of building an ecological and complete industrial chain."

At the International Energy Storage Conference, Academician Zhao Tianshou was also excited, "Flow batteries are already in the window period of industrialization, and this year will be a turning point."

For the energy storage industry, the so-called industrialization means that the production capacity of energy storage products can go up, the products can be bought, and the power station can be connected to the grid. To achieve this step, it is crucial for the wind and photovoltaic industry to choose which kind of energy storage products and which kind of power stations the grid dispatches. Zheng Xiaohao, general manager of

Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology, told Jiazi Lightyear, "For energy storage power stations, only when they are called by high frequency can they be profitable.". Ideally, wind power should be called three to ten times a day, photovoltaic power should be called once, and grid dispatching demand can reach more than one thousand times a day. But the reality is very skeletal, "the mainstream lithium battery energy storage, the average daily call time is only 1.46 hours, the actual utilization rate is only 6. Flow battery current call situation, will not be better than lithium battery."

He cited an actual operation data, "Our four-hour vanadium flow energy storage power station in Weifang Binhai Economic Development Zone, Shandong Province, can be fully discharged twice a day at present." Dispatching is the premise for power stations to participate in electricity market transactions to earn the difference between peak and valley electricity prices and to earn ancillary service fees through capacity sharing. In this context, the data of liquid flow energy storage technology is already good, but there is still a long way to go for power stations to make profits through dispatching.

Zheng Xiaohao said that this is a common problem in the energy storage industry, "the key is the access location of the energy storage power station in the grid, if it is convenient to dispatch, there will be more opportunities."

Therefore, for flow battery companies, what kind of energy storage construction projects can be won is very important. In order to gain a favorable position in the competition, at present, flow battery companies are actively seeking deep binding with new energy giants.

For example, Ju'an Energy Storage has cooperated with China Guangzhou Nuclear Group, Hubei New Energy Co., Ltd., SDIC Shiyan and other enterprises. Weijing Energy Storage undertook the project of Jiangxi Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd. of China Power Construction Group, and in March this year, as the initiator of the initiative, participated in the founding meeting of Shanghai Future Industry New Energy Storage Expert Committee, devoting itself to building Shanghai Future Energy Industry Cluster.

Liquid flow energy storage technology has reached cooperation with Huadian Group, China Nuclear Group and State Power Investment Group. Earlier this month, Star Performance announced a strategic cooperation with China Technology Import and Export Group, a subsidiary of General Technology Group, giving priority to participating in wind and solar power stations and source-network-load storage projects built or invested by General Technology Group in various places.

In addition to actively deepening cooperation with Party A, the trend of deep binding of flow battery industry is also reflected in the control of upstream minerals and the acquisition of capacity climbing ability.

For example, the control of vanadium ore. China's vanadium reserves account for 39% of the world's total, and its output accounts for 67% of the world's total, ranking first in the world, with abundant resources. However, vanadium in China can not be directly supplied to the vanadium flow battery industry at present. Vanadium in vanadium redox flow batteries refers to vanadium pentoxide, the main source of which is vanadium-titanium magnetite. The content of vanadium pentoxide in this kind of ore is not high, the main component is iron, and the smelting process needs blast furnace, so vanadium has always been a by-product of iron smelting in iron and steel plants.Because of the complexity of

vanadium refining technology and the high cost, it is not realistic for vanadium redox flow battery enterprises to directly smelt vanadium, and vanadium pentoxide can not be directly used to make electrolyte, which requires specialized manufacturers to purify the electrolyte for a long time and refine it into high-purity vanadium. After a large set of processes, it is extremely difficult for vanadium flow battery companies to obtain reliable and cheap vanadium supply. Yan Chuanwei, a researcher at the Institute of Metal Research of

the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "At present, the domestic vanadium market is still characterized by" the rivers and lakes of iron and steel ", that is, 85% of the by-product vanadium of iron and steel, and more than 90% of the vanadium is used back in the iron and steel industry. Therefore, the difficulty of obtaining vanadium and the high price of vanadium have become the key to curb the development of vanadium flow battery industry.

"Jiazi Lightyear" observed that in order to solve this problem, many flow battery enterprises have tried to grasp the mining rights through strategic cooperation, equity cooperation and other forms, and through the hands of vanadium giant enterprises, they have priority in obtaining vanadium, so as to build an independent vanadium supply system outside the steel system. This phenomenon can be found everywhere in Sichuan Province, the "capital of vanadium mines". At the end of December

last year, Dalian Rongke signed a cooperation agreement with Chengdu Vanadium and Titanium Trade, a subsidiary of Vanadium and Titanium Co., Ltd., the leading vanadium products company. Vanadium and Titanium Trade promised to give priority to ensuring the balanced supply of Dalian Rongke's products and ensuring the production needs of Dalian Rongke. Earlier, in August last year, Yongtai Energy announced that it would co-invest with Haide to set up and control Detai Energy Storage, which quickly acquired high-quality vanadium ore. In May

this year, Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology held talks with relevant leaders of Panzhihua City in Beijing on the supply of high-purity vanadium and the landing of the industry. Soon after, Xingchen Xinneng and China Minmetals Enfei Engineering Technology Co., Ltd. jointly inspected the vanadium resources in Yanbian County, Sichuan Province, which now owns a Xiangxi vanadium mine through equity control.

As for the capacity climbing ability, it will directly determine whether the flow battery enterprises can grab enough market share when the market demand breaks out.

In order to supplement the engineering capacity, Dalian Rongke announced that it would build an electrolyte production line with Vanadium and Titanium Co., Ltd. Beijing Puneng is negotiating with Hegang Co., Ltd., the second largest enterprise of vanadium products in China, to establish a joint venture company, while Liquid Flow Energy Storage Technology has established a joint venture company with Shandong Haihua Group, a Chinese soda ash giant, to jointly produce vanadium electrolyte.

Weijing Energy Storage told "Jiazi Lightyear" that when technology optimization reaches a certain stage and market demand begins to release, "mass production and increasing production capacity are the core tasks of enterprises at this stage". Many heads of flow battery companies are confident about this year's market growth, "compared with the existing capacity, the market demand is almost infinite.". This year, the market demand for flow batteries is at least four times that of last year. Whether it can be sold is not a problem, but the production capacity is a problem.

In this context, the production capacity of domestic flow battery enterprises began to soar.

For example, Dalian Rongke is building a vanadium electrolyte production line with an annual capacity of more than 2000 cubic meters in Panzhihua City. Shanghai Electric Energy Storage is expanding its base with an annual capacity of 3 GWh in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. Beijing Puneng Century has begun to plan GWh-level flow batteries.

Weijing Energy Storage said that its GW zinc-iron flow battery production line in Zhuhai will be completed in July, with an annual production capacity of 6GWh after putting into operation; Xingchen Xinneng's all-vanadium flow battery production line will have an annual production capacity of 700MW by the end of this year; another vanadium flow battery plant, the flow energy storage technology, will have a production capacity of 600MW by the end of this year; Ju'an Energy Storage also said that in the second half of this year, the company will build a "double million" production line with an annual output of 10,000 tons of all-iron electrolyte and 10,000 stacks.

According to incomplete statistics, from March to June this year alone, there were more than 9 flow battery production lines under construction and planning in China, and the total capacity planning exceeded 8.

Head players competed for capacity, and flow batteries ushered in the era of GW. The industrialization of liquid flow batteries in China began in 2007, when today's industry leaders, such as Dalian Rongke and Beijing Puneng Century, were established successively. After more than ten years of development, flow batteries have finally stood in front of the window of industrialization. Today, with the continuous release of long-term energy storage demand, they are no longer far away from industrialization. Behind the rise of

flow batteries is the continuous high-quality development of China's new energy market and the deepening implementation of the "carbon peak, carbon neutralization" policy.

Some people in the industry have humorously expressed their views on the current energy storage market to "Jiazi Lightyear", "In the past ten years, the main theme of China's new energy is" unlimited scenery ". After experiencing ups and downs such as" double reverse ", China's" scenery "has become the world's first. Now, "unlimited scenery" will be upgraded to "hydrogen storage", hydrogen energy and new energy storage are developing at a high speed, and everyone should look forward to the next decade of China's new energy.