Price of vanadium battery energy storage

Vanadium is ideal for flow batteries because it doesn't degrade unless there's a leak causing the material to flow from one tank through the membrane to the other side. Even in that case, MIT researchers say the cross-contamination is temporary, and only the oxidation states will be affected.

The United States has some vanadium flow battery installations, albeit at a smaller scale. One is a microgrid pilot project in California that was completed in January 2022.

A techno-economic model for vanadium redox flow battery is presented. The method uses experimental data from a kW-kWh-class pilot plant. A market analysis is developed to determine economic parameters. Capital cost and profitability of different battery sizes are assessed. The results of prudential and perspective analyses are presented.

But vanadium comes with its own supply chain issues. As the adoption of long-duration energy storage grows, demand for vanadium will skyrocket. Pure vanadium is rarely naturally occurring, though, and it's usually mined as a byproduct or is otherwise found in compounds. Current production is segmented in China, Russia, and South Africa.

In addition, the vanadium electrolyte after regeneration preserves its operative value because it is not affected by cross-contamination and aging effects. However, no market quotations are available at present for vanadium reselling, so that in a prudential analysis it was assumed EOL cost equal to zero, consistently with most literature [13, 23].

Pure vanadium is rarely naturally occurring, though, and it's usually mined as a byproduct or is otherwise found in compounds. Current production is segmented in China, Russia, and South Africa. Its scarcity also drives up prices and adds volatility in the market.