Wind farm builder Seriti Green, which is planning substantial electricity storage capacity at its big renewable energy project in Mpumalanga, has raised the need for vanadium to be appraised as a battery storage metal of choice in Africa owing to the difficulties of sourcing lithium batteries.
“As Africans, we really need to look towards metals such as vanadium for electricity storage because the lithium supply chain is under extreme pressure,” Seriti Green CEO Peter Venn disclosed in announcing his company’s 155-MW-to-900 MW wind farm project that is getting under way in Mpumalanga province.
Long-duration battery capacity that vanadium can provide supports the integration of renewable energy into electricity grids and is seen by some as providing a generational opportunity that South Africa should not miss.
The 155 MW portion of the Seriti Green project in that province is expected to come in at R4-billion and the eventual 900 MW at R25-billion, with the far-reaching initiative forming part of an agreement that will see clean, green power wheeled through the national grid to meet the carbon neutrality aspirations of coal-mining company Seriti Resources.
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