You can read BALIHT’s second newsletter by following this link.
One year ago, BALIHT started its journey to develop a new organic redox flow battery (oRFB) suitable to work up to temperatures of 80°C. This fact allows to increase overall oRFB efficiency since the use of a dedicated cooling system is avoided. The oRFB we are developing should allow the energy supply and demand to coincide. Our battery will store energy generated by photovoltaic cells and from the grid, and will release it later for electric vehicles charging and energy consumption of the port terminal.
Since then, much progress has been made, thanks to a good cooperation and full dedication of our partners on our common project. Through this newsletter, we wish to reach out to our growing community and thank you for your interest in our project.
BALIHT partners ran tests to identify the most promising organic electrolytes candidates that can operate under high temperature conditions, and yet can deliver a high level of performance at the same time. The most suitable candidates derived from renewable lignin will now move on to the next phase, meaning process development and scaling-up.
An essential part of our project is to develop different components and to improve the design of the oRFB battery suitable to work in a warm environment and under stress conditions due to a heavy multicycle use. We tested different sorts of materials meant to be part of the formulation for electrodes, cell–frames and membranes; lab-scale developments are now scheduled. Tests are also ongoing to challenge the capacity of low-cost flexible tanks of being a safe and efficient container for our battery systems.
In order for our battery to be operational, battery and energy management systems are essential. The consortium is therefore working on such systems tailored for the battery designed in this project. We managed to define the components necessary to the good functioning of the Battery management system (BMS) and its proper integration to the battery, as well as the BMS scheme and the number and type of sensors to be used.
Studies have also been made on the future location of our prototype-testing and the proper adaptations required to the facilities, to ensure that the battery can functionate in an effective way in a real environment and be properly feed by photovoltaic power plants and the grid. BALIHT also concluded a preliminary economic analysis whose results allowed to get a proper initial view of the battery system costs, including initial investment and operation and maintenance of the whole system.
Of course, BALIHT does not communicate only internally. We aim to reach out to a wider scientific community involved in projects about redox flow batteries and get involved in fruitful exchanges of good practices and results. We have already clustered with other H2020-funded projects through common meetings and participation to public events.
In that perspective of disseminating our project results, BALIHT is paving the way to be part of the International Flow Battery Forum, whose objective is to raise the profile of flow batteries as a crucial technology within the electrical energy storage sector. BALIHT is also fully involved in the FlowCamp Project Dissemination & Exploitation Booster that brings together 9 different projects dedicated to flow battery research. Last but not least, our project is getting international recognition: our partner KONCAR presented BALIHT at the international exhibition ARCA2020 and received the Gold Medal Award, which demonstrates the excellence of our partners, the potential of our project and the rising interest about it!
In light of these recent developments and results achieved, we are looking forward to the upcoming two years! The road is long, but we are confident that we will eventually bring a technically and economically effective solution to store and use renewables energy, and therefore contributing to decarbonise Europe.
We hope that this newsletter will give you an update on our own project and on the organic redox flow battery ecosystem as a whole, and will make your interest grow for this sector. Stay tuned!
Javier Peña — AIMPLAS, Project Coordinator
You can read BALIHT’s second newsletter by following this link.