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.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
This post was published on May 19, 2016 12:32 pm
Australia’s only solar panel manufacturer says its retail network has more than doubled over the…
Solar for Apartments Program offers up to $100,000 to eligible bodies corporate, 50% as a…
State government-backed rebate designed to install bulk residential rooftop PV and electric hot water has…
People who live in apartments are less likely to benefit from solar power or efficient…
Australia falls out of global top 10 solar countries. Plus: GridBeyond's Michael Phelan on the…
New Zealand company unveils plans to start making its new-look lead acid home batteries in…
View Comments
Seems the overwhelming interest is in lithium based batteris but it is clear there are many other devepments on the way, especially with grid storage but Cayman Turnbull and the pathetic LNP will not pro-actively support R and D.
Good to see some competition happening in the flow battery space. RedFlow has a competitive offering and we should be hearing from them soon.