WA nickel mine taps vanadium flow battery to go 100 per cent renewable

A nickel, copper and cobalt mine in Western Australia’s Fraser Range will shift its power supply from diesel gen-sets to a hybrid clean energy system backed by a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), a mix that it hopes will take the mine’s operations to 100% renewables for most of the time.

ASX-listed Australian Vanadium Limited announced the plans on Thursday, as part of a deal with ASX100 listed miner IGO Limited, which owns the Nova Nickel Operation, north of Esperance, near Western Australia’s south coast.

Working with its fully-owned subsidiary, Australian vanadium flow battery specialist VSUN Energy, AVL said it had signed an agreement to pilot a stand-alone power system, or SPS, at the mine based around a 300kWh VRFB from Spanish manufacturer E22.

Without specifying the capacity or mix of the renewable component of the SPS, the companies said the system was expected to provide a 100% renewable energy supply for much of the year, with back-up from a diesel genset. A trial period, however, would aim for total renewable penetration of 85-90%.

For IGO, the shift to the SPS – which has been partially funded by $3.69 million federal government grant, promises to significantly reduce the carbon emissions of its usually diesel generator powered bore fields.

As an added bonus, the long periods with diesel-off is also expected to offer substantial reductions in operating hours for service personnel. And the SPS will be redeployable, for use on multiple mines sites and locations over its 20-plus year service life.

“IGO’s strategic focus is on those products that are critical to enabling clean energy solutions, to create a better planet,” said chief operating officer Matt Dusci in a statement.

As part of our strategy to deliver those products, we aspire to be carbon neutral across our business and to do this, in part, by leveraging renewable energy solutions and innovation to reduce emissions at our remote exploration and mining operations.

AVL managing director Vincent Algar said its collaboration with IGO on the SPS project was a win for the company and subsidiary VSUN, as well as for the broader mining industry’s shift towards carbon neutrality.

“The robustness of VRFB energy storage makes it perfectly suited to the tough environments found on many Australian minesites,” Algar said on Thursday.

“The installation of an SPS based on vanadium technology for pumping applications enables diesel to be almost entirely eliminated, helping reduce overall carbon emissions and providing reliable green power.

“We look forward to trialling and then duplicating this system based on an Australian invention and with Australian made vanadium electrolyte from AVL in WA.”

AVL – a miner itself and owner of the Australian Vanadium Project; an open-pit vanadium mine in Meekatharra, Western Australia – has plans to become one of the world’s lowest-cost producers of vanadium, an elemental metal that has rapidly become a key ingredient for large-scale battery energy storage solutions.

The company last year was granted $1.25 million in federal government funding to help finance critical metals research aimed at improving the efficiency of vanadium processing, to decrease its own costs while also delivering benefits downstream to the production of high quality vanadium redox flow batteries – which is the focus of VSUN Energy.

Like other flow battery chemistries, VRFBs are noted for their longevity, safety and durability – they can operate in a wide range of temperatures without the need for heating or cooling, including up to 55°C. They are also non-flammable.

AVL’s VSUN has been chipping away at the Australian residential and commercial/industrial storage markets for a few years now, promising benefits including 100 per cent depth of discharge, lack of performance degradation over time, and ability to re-use the vanadium electrolyte at the end of the battery’s life.

Just under a year ago, VSUN marked its first ever off-grid, residential sale in Australia, providing the energy storage component for a stand-alone power system for a home in regional Western Australia.

In 2019, VSUN helped Victoria’s Meredith Dairty to cover all of its electricity needs via the installation of a 450kW solar system and a 80kW/320kWh vanadium redox flow battery. And before that, the company sold a 20kW/80kWh VRFD system to a Victorian apple farmer, to maximise its solar self-consumption and further reign in costs.