WA farm to get 100kWh vanadium battery storage system – Australia’s first

Listed company Australian Vanadium has announced that it has sold its first Cellcube energy storage system, a 100kWh vanadium battery installation, to a farm in south-western Western Australia.
Australian Vandium – which supplies the metal and, through its subsidiary VSun, has a licence to sell the Cellcube vanadium redox flow battery made by German group Gildermeister – says it will be the first installation of its type in Australia.

The CellCube FB 10-100 can deliver up to 10kW of power and store 100kWh of energy, and is being installed along with a 15kW solar PV system on the farm south of Busselton. It is expected to provide up to 90 per cent of the farm’s electricity needs, although it will remain connected to the grid.
AVL’s Managing Director Vincent Algar said the installation will allow the client to “time-shift” up to 10 hours of power usage, by storing cheap, renewable energy from the solar PV system for later use.
The agricultural property currently operates commercial laundry activities on site, as well as an irrigated native tree nursery, and is planning new developments including homes and businesses.
To best meet these increased power requirements, the client has decided to install a 15kW solar PV system, and may expand this to 30kW, and install the CellCube system, at a total cost of $164,000, payable through a power purchase agreement with a lease-to-buy component.
VSun says the CellCube systems, which can store between 40kWh and 1600kWh in a modular plug-and-play container sized design, are ideal for commercial and grid-scale applications.
To support the rapid increase in interest and enquiries about CellCube systems, VSun is expanding its sales and technical team. The parent company is also considering an Australian-based electrolyte plant as well as the development of the Gabanintha vandadium mine in Western Australia.