{"id":29797,"date":"2023-02-13T11:38:39","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T11:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=29797"},"modified":"2023-02-13T13:43:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T13:43:47","slug":"elestors-flow-battery-low-cost-reliable-energy-storage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/elestors-flow-battery-low-cost-reliable-energy-storage\/29797\/","title":{"rendered":"Elestor\u2019s award-winning hydrogen bromine flow battery produces electrical power and hydrogen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elestor\u2019s innovative hydrogen bromine flow battery technology offers a reliable and low-cost energy storage solution.<\/h2>\n

If anything separates people active in the world of energy storage, it is hydrogen. \u2018Ideal\u2019 and \u2018necessary\u2019 are heard just as often as \u2018too expensive\u2019 and \u2018inefficient\u2019. Be that as it may, at present hydrogen can hardly compete with batteries. At the same time, everyone can see that this is partly caused by the immaturity of the market and a lack of application possibilities. Still, hydrogen is expected to play an important role in the new energy system.<\/p>\n

The Dutch-based company Elestor<\/a> can remove an important barrier to the development of hydrogen as an energy carrier. With the integration of it’s award winning hydrogen bromine flow battery technology<\/a>, it demonstrates that electrolysers, needed to produce hydrogen, can be used continuously, for long periods of time, and with cheap renewable electricity.<\/p>\n

The economics of electrolysis<\/h2>\n

The hydrogen production costs from electrolysis are determined by the capital costs of the electrolyser, its utilisation, and the (average) electricity price during the time of operation. High electrolyser utilisation reduces the share of the electrolyser depreciation in hydrogen production costs. On the other hand, a higher utilisation increases electricity costs, as hours of expensive electricity will increasingly be included. Hence, in order to minimise hydrogen production costs, electrolyser utilisation has to be balanced with the electricity price.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

The key to reducing the cost of hydrogen production is to enhance electrolyser utilisation. This utilisation is, however, determined by the relatively short periods of time during which renewable electricity is cheap enough to economically justify producing hydrogen at a moderate energetic efficiency. In addition, an intermittent operation of electrolysers results in disproportional high costs for maintenance.<\/p>\n

The goal is, therefore, to introduce a solution, allowing electrolysers to run continuously for long periods of time and with low-cost renewable electricity.<\/p>\n

An obvious way to realise this would be to connect a battery parallel to the electrolyser. The battery stores cheap electricity to be used again by the electrolyser during periods in which the electricity from the grid is too expensive. This then increases the utilisation of the electrolyser with low-cost renewable electricity.<\/p>\n

Purely from a conceptual point of view, any battery could, in principle, do the job. However, to also realise an economically viable solution, it is essential that the storage costs per MWh, also known as Levelized Cost of Storage (LCoS), of the battery are extremely low.<\/p>\n

The economic breakthrough lies in using cheap energy that you get from a battery at times when energy from the normal grid is expensive. In principle, this could be done with any battery, but of course you want one whose storage cost per MWh is extremely low by nature. And that is exactly the case with the hydrogen-bromine flow battery: no other battery can store energy at lower costs per MWh.<\/p>\n

And there is another advantage. As a direct result of the operating principle, using hydrogen as a storage medium, this technology has a special match with the production of hydrogen by electrolysis.<\/p>\n

How does HBr flow battery technology work?<\/h3>\n

Elestor has introduced a storage technology for stationary, large-scale applications, which makes use of the flow battery principle. The diagram below shows the basic concept.<\/p>\n

The battery consists of two large tanks to store the active materials. The red tank on the left side stores an aqueous HBr\/Br2<\/sub>\u00a0solution, and the blue tank on the right stores hydrogen gas (H2<\/sub>). Bromine is, with astronomic global reserves of 100 trillion tons, abundantly available and extracted from seawater. Its availability is not geographically limited to certain regions, and therefore available at very low cost \u2013 not only today, but forever.<\/p>\n

Each tank is part of an individual closed circuit through which the active materials flow (hence the name \u2018flow battery\u2019). The active materials flowing through the two circuits interact with each other through a membrane, which is a special layer allowing only hydrogen ions (H+<\/sup>) to pass through during charge or discharge.<\/p>\n

The system is completely closed and works as any normal battery, with + and \u2013 poles for DC power connection to charge and discharge. And, like with any normal battery, nothing goes in or out \u2013 except electricity.<\/p>\n

The required low storage cost per MWh is achieved with Elestor\u2019s patented hydrogen bromine (HBr) flow battery technology. In addition, and due to its unique working principle using hydrogen as a storage medium, the HBr technology has a unique fit with hydrogen production through electrolysis.<\/p>\n

In summary, the HBr flow battery:<\/p>\n