US Vanadium announced a greatly expanded purchase agreement under which Austrian-based Enerox, which sells vanadium redox flow battery (“VRFB”) systems under its brand name CellCube, can purchase up to 3 million additional liters/year of U.S. Vanadium’s ultra-high-purity electrolyte over the next five years. The agreement marks a significant expansion of the initial purchase agreement between US Vanadium and CellCube for 580,000 liters /year of US Vanadium electrolyte, announced in September 2021.
The agreement is believed to be one of the largest such procurements of ultra-high-purity electrolyte known to have been secured by a VRFB electrolyte producer outside China. USV produces ultra-high-purity VRFB electrolyte at its recently expanded Hot Springs, Ark. production facility.
“This agreement reflects today’s rapidly accelerating growth of the vanadium redox flow battery industry and of US Vanadium’s ability to supply VRFB manufacturers with Made-in-America ultra-high-purity electrolyte,” said US Vanadium CEO Mark A. Smith. “We look forward to supplying CellCube, and customers around the world, with the finest and highest purity VRFB electrolyte now available on the market.”
US Vanadium recently expanded its ability to produce ultra-high-purity electrolyte production capacity at its Hot Springs, AR facility to more than 4 million liters per year. US Vanadium’s electrolyte is the highest purity electrolyte produced anywhere in the world today. Ultra-high-purity electrolyte helps to increase the performance and efficiency of VRFB battery systems.Because of their nearly unlimited energy storage capacity, high efficiency, zero emissions, very long cycle lives, and relatively low cost of available electricity on a lifecycle basis, VRFB energy storage systems are enabling consumers to utilize renewable energy systems for 100% of their actual power needs without having to rely on renewable energy credits and other accounting offsets.
“As part of our go-to-market in North America we want to use electrolyte which has been regionally processed within North America ensuring long-term deliverability at a competitive price”, says Enerox CEO Alexander Schoenfeldt and continues “We are pleased to have secured access to U.S.-Vanadium’s ultra-high pure electrolyte long-term which in combination with our own post-production handling in the US marks the opening of a new era of cooperation in the industry, aimed at more standardization of electrolyte and its processing to achieve high quality and performance for a 20-year plus operation without any capacity loss.”
In addition to producing ultra-high-purity electrolyte, US Vanadium can also recycle spent electrolyte from VRFB systems at a 97% vanadium recovery rate.
VRFB batteries are rechargeable batteries that take advantage of the fact that vanadium ions in different oxidation states can efficiently store chemical potential energy. VRFBs allow for an almost unlimited energy capacity, can be discharged to very high percentages without damage, have very long cycle lives (at least 15,000-20,000 charge/discharge cycles), and can remain unused for long periods without permanent effects to the system.
US Vanadium produces the world’s highest purity V2O5, V2O3, and downstream vanadium chemicals including VRFB electrolyte by recovering contained vanadium from a variety of post-industrial waste streams, which underscores US Vanadium’s commitment to maximizing sustainable practices in its operations.
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