The development of Flow Battery systems for wind farm at EU

This 3-year project worth £1.7m funded by the Korean government through the Korea Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) institute looks at the development of Redox flow batteries for integration with distributed energy resources such as wind farms. Development of three systems rated at 25 kW/50 kWh, 250 kW/500 kWh and 750 kW/1 MWh is foreseen. The 25 kW/50 kWh system is already being tested at PNDC, as of March 2016, as part of phase-1 of the project. The higher rated systems will be deployed alongside wind energy conversion systems in phase-2 and phase-3.

Flow batteries technology is gathering interest due to its advantages such as the capability to remain in discharged state almost indefinitely, decoupled power and energy capacity as well as a low-fire risk. Several chemistries are being suggested. PNDC is testing the flow-battery system using Zinc-Bromide as the electrolyte. The name flow-battery comes from the fact that the electrolyte is made to flow over the stacks using a pump system.