“Today, amidst the rapid development in the utilization of unstable solar and wind energy sources, it is necessary to adopt large-scale energy storage technologies that can even out fluctuations in energy supply. However, the main obstacle is the high cost of storage, so a price of $100/ kWh or lower to be competitive,” said Vijay K. Ramani, Vice Chancellor of Graduate Education and International Affairs at Washington University.
Vijay delivered a Public Lecture entitled “Utilization of Redox Flow Batteries for Grid-Scale Electrochemical Energy Storage” which was held on Monday (05/06) in front of students of the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering FTUI.
“Therefore, as a technology that can store energy on a large scale, batteries can answer this but unfortunately battery systems that are competitive in the consumer electronics or automotive sectors have not been able to compete in grid-scale storage,” he continued.
Vijay K. Ramani again explained that there are redox flow type batteries (RFBs) which can be a solution and have the potential to be a competitive alternative in terms of cost. RFBs offer the intrinsic advantage of separating energy and power, which allows scaling up storage at a lower cost. This also ensures that energy scaling costs tend to be sub-linear, where only storage units are upgraded while the stack remains the same.
“RFBs allow energy storage for a much longer time than traditional batteries. Traditional vanadium-based redox flow battery systems are at a cost disadvantage due to the high active cost of vanadium. A redox flow battery that has separation of electrodes and is estimated to cost about 1/3 the cost of a single vanadium system while offering a comparable power density to single vanadium,” he said.
Key to the innovation of this system is the use of an anion exchange separator membrane which ensures the long-term separation of the different cationic redox species in the anolyte and catholyte and allows us to demonstrate a nearly undeceased cycle of capacity usage over long periods.
This electrode-separated system meets the important criteria for an RFB system, namely low cost, single-phase reaction, no adverse side reactions, and an operating voltage of more than 1 Volt. In addition, the choice of species in solution allows for greater safety where stress excursion is terminated due to the formation and deposition of active species.
Met on a separate occasion, the Dean of FTUI, Prof. Dr. Heri Hermansyah, S.T., M.Eng., IPU. expressed his high appreciation for the visit and guest lecture delivered by Prof. Vijay K. Ramani. “The issue raised by Prof. Vijay is highly relevant to the engineering field and has great potential in advancing energy storage technologies. The use of redox flow batteries offers exciting opportunities in addressing the challenge of energy storage from renewable sources and in supporting the transition to a more sustainable energy system. FTUI is very aware of the importance of this technology in increasing the efficiency, capacity and sustainability of energy storage systems.”
Vijay K. Ramani is Vice Chancellor for Graduate Education and International Affairs at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). He also serves as a Professor in the Departments of Energy, Environmental Engineering, and Chemical Engineering at WUSTL and holds the Rome B. and Raymond H. Wittcoff Distinguished University Professorship.
His research interests are in a mix of electrochemical engineering, materials science, and renewable energy technology, with a focus on electrochemical energy conversion and storage (low-temperature fuel cells, electrolyzers, and redox flow batteries). His research has been funded by NSF, ONR, DOE, and ARPA-E.
He is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) and has served as Chair of the ECS IE&EE Division and Area 1E AIChE. Vijay holds a Doctoral degree (Ph.D.) from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree from Annamalai University, India, both in Chemical Engineering.
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Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia