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Hi, I do not subscribe. What is the gist of the view please? Regards, Simon.
I'm not currently a holder but I'd say the gist was positive. On of the largest capital raises on the UK market this year despite the current lack of appetite for smaller company fundraisers.
The technology looks interesting. The article seems to suggest that one container size battery can store enough electricity to power 30 homes for a day and that it can hold its charge 3x longer than a lithium battery, with no fire risk.
“the infrastructure bank has done six months of due diligence on us. that has been significant in getting other people comfortable that now is the time to back us,” said jonathan marren, the chief financial officer of invinity energy systems.
invinity’s capital raise is thought to be one of the largest in london this year and was oversubscribed. “we’ve had some big institutions backing us for the first time,” said marren. “that shows to me there is capital available. but i think you’ve got to have the story right. the hope is that we’ll get the market going again.”
invinity’s timing looks good. last week the g7 set a goal of increasing battery storage on grids sixfold by 2030. the move comes as governments look to wean themselves off minerals supplied by china, including lithium.
the company’s vanadium flow battery can emit 220kwh, enough to power 30 homes for a day. invinity claims that the 25-year lifespan of its product easily outweighs that of lithium batteries. flow batteries come in units the size of shipping containers and can be stacked closely together to generate more power. because they are water-based, there is no risk of fire.
“lithium batteries, while they have their uses, won’t meet all the requirements for energy storage, especially as the market demands longer duration to bridge the gaps in renewables,” said larry zulch, the chief executive of invinity.
vanadium is mined in brazil, china, russia and south africa but can also be recycled from iron ore ****. the ftse 100 giant glencore mines it in south africa. typically used to reinforce steel, it can also be used to store electricity. vanadium salts are dissolved into a water-based electrolyte solution that “flows” (hence the name “flow battery”) through a “cell stack” comprised of plastic frames and electrodes stacked together. this enables electrons to pass back and forth between the vanadium atoms, allowing electricity to be stored or released.
vanadium flow batteries are a relatively well-understood concept, zulch said, but they have taken time to gain traction as research has focused on lithium batteries. invinity’s customers already include scottish water and edf. three years ago it signed up the wind farm giant siemens gamesa as a partner to work on the next generation of its batteries. schroders is its biggest investor.
in the medium term, invinity plans to manufacture batteries in bathgate in scotland and vancouver, canada. it then hopes to license its tech in other markets, where batteries would be built by third-party manufacturers.
Do#es anyone have any views on the competition, in particular Sodium-ion which is getting some attention. How do IES come out against the field?
I’m going to have to see if anyone has a Sunday times left now so I can read it!
So far as the competition is concerned, until the specs for mistral are published we don’t have much to compare. And I would imagine that sodium-ion would have to jump through the same regulatory, funding and acceptance hoops that IES has spent the last few years negotiating so hopefully vanadium has a head start?
How scalable are these batteries really? Most new grid bank projects under consideration are now 100MW+. These batteries do have many advantages over lithium-ion batteries (cost, durability, fire etc.) but size isn't one of them. Even when double or tripled stacked they're likely to need quite a lot more land than equivalent lithium-ion batteries, which might prove to be at a premium the closer grid banks are brought to urban centres where they are needed.
I don't know the size of the Mistral units or indeed if they are units at all in the usual sense but the existing units are bigger than the equivalent lithium capacity batteries. But the can be much closer and stacked (no fire risk). For most grid applications size is not a big issue. In urban areas the noise from lithium cooling units might be a problem. I think VFBs are almost silent. In most applications I'm sure it will be a capex per KWH and the longevity that will be the main considerations. Mistral cost are 40% less than existing VFBs we are told and they hope to get that down to 60%. Hope that helps.
Oxford is the best example of the contrast in terms of noise and spacing between lithium and V flow