How much energy can vanadium batteries store? According to Shaanxi Tiancheng Qin'an Nonferrous Metals Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tiancheng Qin'an"), the current installed capacity of wind power in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, is only 300 megawatts. Assuming one megawatt requires four standard shipping containers of vanadium batteries, 1200 standard shipping containers of vanadium batteries would be enough to store the electricity generated by all the wind power plants currently in operation in Liangshan Prefecture. Tiancheng Qin'an found that even for a hydropower station like Zipingpu, with an installed capacity of over 700 megawatts, less than 3000 standard shipping containers of vanadium batteries would be sufficient to store its generated electricity.
Previously, a fundamental reason restricting the generation of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power in China was the instability of the production process. This directly resulted in a large amount of new energy power being wasted or even abandoned, thus affecting the development of renewable energy. According to incomplete statistics from Tiancheng Qin'an, in 2013, my country lost more than 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity due to wind curtailment, enough to power the entire Sichuan province for more than a month.
Vanadium-ion batteries, compared to traditional lead-acid batteries, have the biggest advantage of storing enormous amounts of electricity and having a long lifespan. Tiancheng Qin'an believes this is a key reason why large-scale electricity storage has become possible. Storing electricity that would otherwise be wasted and then transmitting it during peak demand periods not only saves a significant amount of energy but is also more environmentally friendly.
So, how large is the market for vanadium energy storage batteries? Currently, according to Tiancheng Qin'an's calculations, the market price for a vanadium energy storage battery that stores 1 megawatt-hour of electricity is around 5 million RMB. To put that in perspective, manufacturing a battery capable of storing electricity from the Zipingpu Hydropower Station would cost approximately 3 billion RMB. Industry experts predict that the global market for vanadium energy storage batteries could exceed 100 billion USD in the next ten years.
Furthermore, storing one kilowatt-hour of electricity requires approximately 40 liters of vanadium electrolyte, including 9 kilograms of vanadium pentoxide. If the Zipingpu Hydropower Station generates 750,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour at full capacity, then the required vanadium energy storage batteries would need nearly 7,000 tons of vanadium pentoxide. Simply multiplying this number tenfold would result in a demand of 70,000 tons.
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Meanwhile, Tiancheng Qin'an discovered that a major obstacle currently hindering vanadium energy storage batteries is the existing power system. Currently, the cost for power grid companies to purchase thermal and hydropower is far lower than that for wind and solar power. Against this backdrop, their enthusiasm for developing energy storage batteries is low; they would rather curtail wind power than invest in building energy storage systems. Tiancheng Qin'an believes that the fundamental solution lies in reforming the current power system and using legal means to guarantee the development of renewable energy and encourage the development of large-capacity energy storage batteries.
