Techno-economic assessment of future vanadium flow batteries based on real device/market parameters

This paper presents a techno-economic model based on experimental and market data able to evaluate the profitability of vanadium flow batteries, which are emerging as a promising technology for specific stationary energy services. Models like this are very informative on the present and perspective competitivity of industrial flow batteries in operating specific services, but they have not yet been developed to an accurate grade. This model uses technical parameters which are taken from large-area multi-cell stacks, rather than from small single cell experiments, to better characterize the behavior of real industrial reactors, and from real financial market and economic patterns of some major manufacturers. The model yields economic performance indicators as the capital cost, the operative cost, the levelized cost of storage and the net present value. A prudential present-state and a perspective analysis are elaborated to show where the economic indicators are heading, and which parameters affect more the investment profitability, thus tracking a possible roadmap for system optimization. Perspective estimations indicate that technological and market evolutions are heading to much more competitive systems, with capital costs down to 260 € kWh−1 at a energy/power duration of 10 h, to be compared with a break-even point in the net present value of 400 € kWh−1, which suggests that flow batteries may play a major role in some expanding markets, notably the long duration energy storage.