On May 16, Senior Research Scientist Mikhail Pugach, who heads the Energy Center’s flow battery research group, visited the research and development center of Rongke Power Co. Ltd., which is the largest manufacturer of large-scale energy storage systems using vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB), operating more than 10 pilot projects in China with a combined capacity of about 1 GWh. The milestones reached during the negotiations with Rongke Power’s R&D team include plans for joint development of VRFB systems and a joint pilot project in Russia. Earlier, at the IEEE 7th International Electrical and Energy Conference in Harbin, China, Mikhail reported on the latest research into VRFB modeling. It revealed electrolyte heating during cyclic battery operation to be possibly the most limiting factor for the operating load current and the duration of battery cycling. Lowering the ambient temperature, the research found, may prolong VRFB operation by lowering the temperature of the electrolyte and enabling higher load currents. This hypothesis will be tested in further research.
