Recently, the world's largest demonstration project of 5MW/ 10MWh all-vanadium redox flow battery energy storage system passed the acceptance of Liaoning Electric Power (Market Area) Survey and Design Institute, and now it has been put into full operation. Insiders pointed out that under the good drive of the above demonstration projects, all-vanadium flow battery will be expected to become a "dark horse" in the energy storage industry if it makes greater breakthroughs in core technology research and development, stability and cost control in the future; In addition, China's new energy industry will also enter the "vanadium battery era". It is expected that vanadium-related stocks such as Star Power (stock market trading point), Guoxingguang Power (stock market trading point), Tianxing Instrument (stock market trading point) and Liang Hai (stock market trading point) will be favored by funds. In recent years, wind power generation has developed very rapidly in China. By the end of 20 12, the cumulative installed capacity of wind power reached 75.324 million kilowatts; However, due to the discontinuous, unstable and unsteady characteristics of renewable energy such as wind energy, large-scale grid connection will adversely affect the peak shaving, frequency modulation and power quality of the power grid. Therefore, with the increase of wind power installed capacity in the power grid, the phenomenon of abandoning wind and limiting electricity also appears frequently.
Some experts pointed out that how to improve the power grid's ability to accept renewable energy, reduce wind abandonment and improve the utilization efficiency of renewable energy has become a major problem to be solved in China in the future.
According to relevant media reports, compared with other energy storage technologies, all-vanadium flow battery energy storage technology has become one of the first choice technologies for large-scale energy storage because of its outstanding advantages such as long life, large scale, safety and reliability. In 20 12, the development plan of energy storage technology formulated by the United States has listed all-vanadium flow battery in the first place. It is reported that large energy storage batteries have three basic requirements: high safety, high cost performance in the whole life cycle and environmental friendliness in the whole life cycle.
All-vanadium flow battery energy storage system, as one of the preferred technologies for energy storage at present, has high safety. When working at normal temperature and pressure, the heat generated by the battery system can be effectively discharged through the electrolyte, and then discharged outside the system through heat exchange. In addition, the electrolyte solution is a non-flammable and non-explosive aqueous solution, so the system operation safety is high.
Because all-vanadium flow battery energy storage system has many advantages, some industry analysts say that all-vanadium flow battery technology has immeasurable development potential in the future energy storage industry, and may even change the future energy pattern.
The world's largest 5MW/ 10MWh all-vanadium flow battery energy storage system that passed the acceptance this time is behind the independent innovation research and development and cooperation between Dalian Institute of Chemical Technology and Dalian Ke Rong Energy Storage Technology Development Co., Ltd. 13 years. Analysts said that the successful operation of the demonstration project marks that China's all-vanadium flow battery technology has reached the international leading level, providing effective technical support for the popularization and application of renewable energy, which has important social benefits and will produce remarkable economic benefits.
China trillion energy storage market will start.
According to China's "New Energy Vehicle (Market Area) Industry Development Plan" and the data of battery industry in recent years, the market scale of wind power energy storage equipment and urban peak-shaving energy storage equipment used in vanadium batteries is about 1 1000 billion yuan, which brings historical opportunities to vanadium battery industry for the general trend of national economic development.
In the future, vanadium battery will lead the battery trend of pure electric vehicles in the world. Recently, vanadium battery has been included in the national "863 Plan" alternative project, and the Sino-German "Bonn Plan" new energy vehicle project was laid in Hainan Island in April of 201/,with an investment of tens of billions. Vanadium battery is one of the key projects.
At present, the government, industry and academia have a lot of knowledge about vanadium batteries, and they all think that vanadium batteries have a good development prospect in China. First of all, China is rich in vanadium resources and has core technologies. At present, China has mastered the key technologies of vanadium batteries in the world through transnational integration. The characteristics of vanadium battery are also suitable for the demand of China power grid, with long life, repeatable discharge and high reliability, which can fully meet the demand of building smart grid in China.
It is understood that vanadium batteries used for peak shaving and wind energy storage in power stations in Japan have developed rapidly, and the high-power vanadium battery energy storage system has been put into use, and its commercialization process is being fully promoted. But in China, the vanadium battery industry is still in its infancy. In view of the embryonic state of vanadium batteries in China, Zhongce Capital Group has established raw material production bases (market areas) of vanadium batteries in Xuzhou and Nanyang, and established a national demonstration base integrating scenery and storage in Yumen, Gansu, the largest wind power generation base in China. In addition, the Group introduced new vanadium battery technology from Japan and South Korea through equity ties, and then absorbed, digested and innovated it, and established a joint research and development center for engineering technology among China, Japan and South Korea, and applied for patents in many countries around the world.
According to relevant data, China's vanadium reserves account for 35% of the global vanadium reserves, ranking first in the world; China's vanadium production accounts for 48% of the global output, and China's vanadium production reached 6150,000 tons in 20 10. Superior resource endowments have created unique conditions for the development of vanadium battery industry in China.
According to industry insiders, vanadium battery is a vanadium-based redox battery energy storage system, which is very suitable for large-scale static energy storage. In the future, it will be widely used in solar energy, wind energy generation and energy storage equipment, power station energy storage and peak shaving, electric vehicles and other fields, or it will become an important direction of battery development in the future. In order to reduce the impact of wind power and photovoltaic power generation on the power grid, each power generation equipment needs to be equipped with an energy storage battery with a power equivalent to 10%-50%, and the energy storage demand is higher than 20% of the installed capacity of wind power. Some brokerage analysts predict that the market size of vanadium batteries in China will reach10.6 trillion yuan in 2020, of which the output value of wind power will be the main part.
Vanadium concept stocks attract attention.
Under the good leading role of the world's largest demonstration project in the application of 5MW/ 10MWh all-vanadium flow battery energy storage system, vanadium battery is expected to become a "dark horse" in the future energy storage industry; In addition, China's new energy industry will also enter the "vanadium battery era". It is expected that vanadium-related stocks such as Star Power, Guoxingguang Power, Tianxing Instrument and Liang Hai will be favored by funds.
Star Power (600 10 1): Some analysts pointed out that vanadium is known as the "monosodium glutamate of modern industry". The company holds 0/00% equity of Sichuan Occean Da Resources Investment and Development Co., Ltd./KLOC, which has done a lot of work in mineral exploration and development. The company has obtained seven mineral rights such as iron, manganese, vanadium, silver, copper, lead and zinc in Ganzi, Sichuan, Heping, Yang Shan, Jiangda, Tibet and Qiemo, Xinjiang. Among them, the core asset of Occean Da is Yangwa Vanadium Mine Project in Shanyang County, Shaanxi Province (the mining right has been obtained).
Guo Xingguang Power (002449): On 2013 June, the shareholders' meeting of the company agreed to adjust the investment implementation subject of the vanadium industry project, and Yulong Vanadium Industry will continue to implement the project. On the other hand, Yulong Vanadium Industry has been relying on owning the mining right of Molaogou Vanadium Mine in Xichuan County, Henan Province since the end of 2005, and has obtained the mining license issued by the land and resources department. The main ore in this mining area is vanadium pentoxide.
Tianxing Instrument (000710): In June 2008, the company completed the acquisition of 70% equity of Xindilong Mining Company. At present, the company has obtained a mining license for Yaolinghe vanadium mine, with a validity period of 3 years, from 20 10 to 20 13. The exploration area of the project is 6.46 square kilometers. At present, the ore reserves of Yaolinghe vanadium mine owned by Xindilong are 23.82 million tons. The project construction (market area) needs to invest about 60 million yuan, and the company still needs to raise funds to invest in the construction.
Liang Hai shares (002203): The company holds 50 million shares of Henghao Mining, accounting for 12.89% of the total share capital after the additional issuance of Henghao Mining. It is reported that Henghao Mining has four nickel mines, one vanadium mine, two manganese mines and two copper-molybdenum mines, with a vanadium metal reserve of 420,300 tons. 1. As a reaction site, the1.stack is separated from the storage tank for electrolyte, which fundamentally overcomes the self-discharge phenomenon of traditional batteries. The power only depends on the size of the stack, and the capacity only depends on the electrolyte reserve and concentration, so the design is very flexible; Under the condition of constant power, to increase the energy storage capacity, it is only necessary to increase the volume of electrolyte storage tank or increase the volume or concentration of electrolyte, without changing the size of the stack; By replacing or adding the charged electrolyte, the purpose of "instant charging" can be realized. It can be used to build a kilowatt-to-hundred-megawatt energy storage power station with strong adaptability.
Second, the charging and discharging performance is good, which can be used for high-power charging and discharging, and can also allow floating charging and deep discharging. For lead-acid batteries, the greater the discharge current, the shorter the battery life; The deeper the discharge depth, the shorter the battery life. Even if the discharge depth of vanadium battery reaches 100%, it will not affect the battery. Moreover, the vanadium battery is not easy to short-circuit, thus avoiding safety problems such as explosion caused by short-circuit.
Third, the number of charge and discharge is extremely large, and the theoretical life is countless times. The charge-discharge time ratio is 1: 1, while the lead-acid battery is 4: 1. Moreover, the charging and discharging response speed of vanadium battery is fast, less than 20 milliseconds, which is very beneficial to balanced power supply.
Fourth, high energy efficiency, DC-DC energy efficiency can reach more than 80%, while lead-acid batteries are only about 60%. The state of each single battery in the vanadium battery pack is basically the same, and the maintenance is simple and convenient.
Five, the freedom of site selection is great, and the floor space is small. The system can be closed automatically, without acid fog and acid corrosion. The electrolyte can be reused, without discharge, with simple maintenance and low operating cost. This is a green energy storage technology. Therefore, vanadium battery is an ideal substitute for lead-acid battery generated by renewable energy. Compared with other chemical power sources, vanadium battery has obvious advantages, the main advantages are as follows:
1. High power: By increasing the number of single cells and electrode area, the power of vanadium battery can be improved. The power of vanadium battery in commercial demonstration operation in the United States has reached 6 MW.
2. Large capacity: by arbitrarily increasing the volume of electrolyte, the capacity of vanadium battery can be arbitrarily increased, reaching GW-hour or above; By increasing the concentration of electrolyte, the capacity of vanadium battery can be doubled.
3. High efficiency: Due to the high catalytic activity of the vanadium battery electrode, the positive and negative active substances are stored in the positive and negative electrolyte storage tanks respectively, which avoids the self-discharge consumption of the positive and negative active substances. The charging and discharging energy conversion efficiency of the vanadium battery is as high as 75%, much higher than that of the lead-acid battery (45%).
4. Long service life: Because the positive and negative active substances of vanadium battery only exist in the positive and negative electrolyte respectively, there is no common phase change in the charging and discharging process of other batteries, so it can be deeply discharged without damaging the battery, and the service life of the battery is long. The vanadium battery module with the longest commercial demonstration operation time in VRBPowerSystems, Canada, has been running normally for more than 9 years, and its charge-discharge cycle life exceeds 18000 times, which is much higher than that of fixed lead-acid batteries.
5. Fast response speed: the vanadium battery stack can be started instantly when it is filled with electrolyte, and it only takes 0.02 seconds to switch the charging and discharging state during operation, and the response speed is 1 millisecond.
6. Instantaneous charging: Vanadium batteries can be instantly charged by changing the electrolyte.
7. High safety: Vanadium battery has no potential explosion or fire danger, even if the positive and negative electrolyte are mixed, there is no danger, but the electrolyte temperature is slightly increased.
8. Low cost: Vanadium battery components are mostly cheap carbon materials and engineering plastics except ionic membranes, which are rich in materials and easy to recycle, and do not need precious metals as electrode catalysts, so the cost is low.
9. Vanadium battery has great freedom in site selection, and can be fully automatically closed and run without pollution. There are two main technical problems in vanadium battery. Firstly, the pentavalent vanadium in the positive solution of vanadium battery is easy to precipitate vanadium pentoxide when it is left standing or when the temperature is higher than 45 degrees Celsius. The precipitated sediment blocks the flow channel and coats carbon felt fibers, which deteriorates the performance of the stack until it is scrapped. When the stack runs for a long time, the electrolyte temperature is easy to exceed 45 degrees Celsius. Second, the graphite plate should be etched by anodic solution. If the user operates properly, the graphite plate can be used for two years. If the user does not operate properly, the graphite plate can be completely etched with one charge, and it can only be scrapped and stacked. Under normal use, it will be maintained by professionals every two months, which is both costly and laborious.
In addition, the cost of vanadium battery is too high. Take a 5kW battery as an example, the electrolyte (one cubic meter, 1.8mol/L) 17000, control system 170000, diaphragm 70000, plate rack 40000, graphite plate 15000 and pump 7000. Therefore, the cost of a five-kilowatt vanadium battery is more than 400,000, which is several times higher than that of a lead-acid battery of the same specification.
From the perspective of environmental protection, vanadium batteries are not environmentally friendly at all. The raw materials used to prepare electrolyte, anode precipitation, and the thin layer formed by leaking anode liquid after air drying all have one thing, namely vanadium pentoxide, which is a highly toxic chemical.
Therefore, there are still many problems to be solved in vanadium batteries. There has been no breakthrough in vanadium battery research in China for more than ten years, which is not optimistic. Vanadium battery (VRB) is a new clean energy storage device, which has been applied in the United States, Japan, Australia and other countries. Compared with lead-acid batteries and nickel-hydrogen batteries in the market, VRB has obvious technical advantages such as high power, long service life, support for frequent heavy current charging and discharging, and environmental protection. It is mainly used in renewable energy grid-connected power generation, urban power grid energy storage, remote power supply, UPS system, island application and other fields.
Iron-chromium redox battery existed as early as 1960s, but vanadium redox battery was proposed by Marria Kacos of the University of New South Wales in Australia in 1985. After more than ten years of research and development, vanadium battery technology is close to maturity. In Japan, the fixed vanadium battery used for peak shaving and wind energy storage in power stations (compared with electric vehicles) has developed rapidly, and the high-power vanadium battery energy storage system has been put into practical use, and its commercialization process has been fully promoted. Preliminary work: Our company took the lead in developing vanadium batteries in China from 1995. The prototype of 20W, 100W and 500W vanadium batteries has been successfully developed, which has achieved a breakthrough in key technologies of vanadium batteries and filled a gap in China. Successfully developed technologies such as preparation of tetravalent vanadium solution, molding and mass production of conductive plastics, and assembly and debugging of medium-sized battery packs. 1998,500 w vanadium battery prototype is used to drive battery cars. At present, an 800W product prototype has been developed.