The Western Australian Government will pilot a long-duration vanadium flow battery in Kununurra, Western Australia.
The vanadium flow battery boasts a 78kW capacity and 220kWh of storage, making it well suited to Kimberley conditions, where energy storage must be temperature resilient and capable of delivering energy over a long period of time.
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The pilot will also provide Horizon Power with lessons on how to integrate long-duration energy storage into its network, microgrids, and other off-grid power systems.
Battery storage already plays a critical role in WA’s energy mix, with large-scale batteries in Kwinana and Collie absorbing excess rooftop solar power during the day and redistributing it at night when demand for energy is greater.
VSUN Energy, a subsidiary of Australian Vanadium, has supplied the vanadium flow battery, and will collaborate with Horizon Power on system support testing over the next 12 months.
Horizon Power CEO Stephanie Unwin said, “Kununurra, with its hot and humid climate, is a challenging environment for battery energy storage. Piloting the vanadium flow battery in these extreme conditions will help us to learn more about its capabilities and the potential for it to be effectively integrated into our network, much of which is subject to extreme temperatures.
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“We look forward to collaborating with VSUN Energy and testing this cutting-edge technology over the next 12 months.
“This long duration energy storage pilot supports our focus on solving the important technical challenge of long duration storage and performance in extreme environments, supporting us with our decarbonisation goals.”
