Australian Vanadium Limited (“AVL”) has announced that its
100% owned subsidiary VSUN Energy will be installing a 5kW/30kWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) for use on a trial basis at Water Corporation’s innovation hub in Shenton Park, WA at its Water, Research and Innovation Precinct. The VRFB will initially be trialled for use on a mobile water purification unit and will provide 100% renewable power to the system via a solar PV and VRFB standalone power system (SPS).
VSUN Energy will be working with Water Corporation to test, collect data and provide suitable options for potential future use cases for VRFBs throughout Water Corporation’s operations. Of particular interest are remote pumping applications and for supplying power to remote offgrid energyloads, currently powered by diesel generators.
Managing Director, Vincent Algar comments, “Companies such as Water Corporation have a multitude of settings where a 100% renewable long life asset SPS is well suited. Being able to reduce or eliminate diesel usage almost entirely is a key step to cost optimisation and decarbonisation.
Modern VRFBs provide a sustainable, technically advanced and proven energy storage solution that is safe and reliable and can be replicated many times over.”
Water Corporation is the principal supplier of water, wastewater, drainage and bulk irrigation services in Western Australia and is owned by the Western Australian Government. Water Corporation manages almost 35,000km of water mains across an area greater than 2.6 million kilometres. Water
Corporation has a commitment to reducing its environmental footprint, with the use of renewable energy being one of the solutions for doing this.
The battery will be provided free of charge to Water Corporation for the duration of the trial, with an option to purchase at Water Corporation’s discretion.
VSUN Energy is a 100% subsidiary of Australian Vanadium Limited and is focused on development of the renewable energy and VRFB market in Australia. AVL is developing a mine and processing plant in mid-west WA to produce 5% of global new supply of vanadium pentoxide which is a key
ingredient in high-strength low alloy (HSLA) steel and VRFB systems. Both uses of vanadium contribute significantly to CO2 emission reduction. Vanadium is listed as a critical mineral in Australia, the US, UK, Japan and Korea.