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"The U.S. made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China" [1]
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Date: 2022-08-04
The headline is from an article from NPR. It seems that some 10 years ago, a group of engineers and researchers began building a vanadium redox flow battery. They were using a design produced by a U.S.-controlled lab. The design had many positive attributes. For one thing, it could be made the size of a refrigerator and if put under solar panels, it could power an entire house.
Again from NPR;
“This is technology made from taxpayer dollars," Skievaski said. "It was invented in a national lab. (Now) it's deployed in China, and it's held in China. To say it's frustrating is an understatement."...It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe. Others had made similar batteries with vanadium, but this mix was twice as powerful and did not appear to degrade the way cellphone batteries or even car batteries do. The researchers found the batteries capable of charging and recharging for as long as 30 years….”
Evenwww.pv-magazine-india.com/… in India had an article in 2020;
“Vanadium batteries are extremely susceptible to the price of battery grade 99.5% V205 which makes up around 35% of the total cost. The market for V205 is mostly shared between its use for strengthening steel along with alloys and flow batteries as minor markets. Increased demand from steel caused a spike in prices from around $8/LB to more than $35/LB in late 2018 on the China spot market. Much of this demand was caused by overestimation of the influence of the introduction of new Chinese rebar standards, and the effect on vanadium battery markets was immediate. From early 2019 prices of V205 fell back dramatically to current levels of around $7/LB. In discussions with Chinese industry professionals the consensus is that flow batteries are commercially viable at levels below $10/LB. By mid-2020, stable raw material prices will probably create a new level of confidence for manufacturers.”
As the price of Vanadium dropped, so did improvement in the connectors and when all is taken into consideration, with a longer life expected, the cost is competitive.
"It was beyond promise," said Chris Howard, one of the engineers who worked there...The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances…..”
NPR requested information, but even though they were unable to get answers;
“After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd.”
Now, Forever Energy, a Bellevue, Wash., based company, has been trying to get a license for over a year, but their chief financial officer said;
“... the department's decision to allow foreign manufacturing "mind boggling."..."This is technology made from taxpayer dollars," Skievaski said. "It was invented in a national lab. (Now) it's deployed in China, and it's held in China…. she says it will be difficult for any American company at this point to catch up. Industry trade reports currently list Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. as the top manufacturer of vanadium redox flow batteries worldwide. Skievaski also worries about whether China will stop making the batteries once an American company is granted the right to start making them. That may be unlikely. Chinese news reports say the country is about to bring online one of the largest battery farms the world has ever seen. The reports say the entire farm is made up of vanadium redux flow batteries.”www.npr.org/
While U.S. manufacturers are trying to get a license;
“In 2021, Yang transferred the battery license to a European company based in the Netherlands. The company, Vanadis Power, told NPR it initially planned to continue making the batteries in China and then would set up a factory in Germany, eventually hoping to manufacture in the U.S., said Roelof Platenkamp, the company's founding partner. Vanadis Power needed to manufacture batteries in Europe because the European Union has strict rules about where companies manufacture products, Platenkamp said. "I have to be a European company, certainly a non-Chinese company, in Europe," Platenkamp said in an interview with NPR.”
According to the article the license was given to them even though their own st said that the product would be made in China, a direct violation of our permission standards. Other countries profited from the control of the license going to China;
“In the UK, the world’s largest battery storage system to hybridise lithium-ion and vanadium flow went officially into commercial operation this summer, pairing 50MW/50MWh of lithium with a 2MW/5MWh VRFB system. The flow battery company behind that project, Invinity Systems, is also supplying Australia’s first grid-scale flow battery storage, a 2MW/8MWh system co-located with a 6MWp solar PV plant in South Australia. Invinity will also supply a 2.8MW/8.4MWh battery storage system at a demonstration project in Alberta, Canada.”
With the license in China’s hands, we lost valuable time improving the process and this allowed China to get a jump start on us. the storage of electricity is a major problem that, once solved economically, will make a tremendous difference. We are making strides in that direction;
“At the larger end of the scale, California non-profit energy supplier Central Coast Community Energy (CCCE) picked three VRFB projects as part of a procurement of resources to come online by 2026, ranging from 6MW/18MWh to 16MW/128MWh and totalling 226MWh.” www.energy-storage.news/...
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