Robert Friedland, Chairman of VRB Energy, and Dr. Mianyan Huang, Chief Technology Officer and President of China Operations, are pleased to announce today that commissioning of a 3-megawatt (MW) 12-megawatt-hour (MWh) vanadium-redox-battery energy-storage-system (VRB-ESS) in China is currently underway, with the first battery module of 250-kilowatt (kW) 1MWh successfully commissioned.
The 3MW 12MWh VRB-ESS currently being installed in Zaoyang, Hubei to integrate a large solar photovoltaic system into the grid is the first phase of a 10MW 40MWh project that VRB Energy was awarded in November 2017.
“We are delighted to have successfully integrated the first module of a 1MW 4MWh VRB-ESS into the local grid, allowing our customer Hubei Pingfan to immediately benefit from cost-savings on peak-hour electricity tariffs through energy arbitrage at its industrial park,” said Dr. Huang. “By charging the VRB-ESS at hours when electricity tariff is low and then discharging that power during on-peak hours when electricity tariff is high, our customer will be able to reduce the cost of expensive on-peak power.”
When Phase 1 is completed by the end of 2018, the VRB-ESS will be the largest vanadium flow battery installed in China.
Following this 10MW 40MWh project, Hubei Province has planned a larger 100MW 500MWh energy storage project, to fulfill a key initiative under China’s 2017 energy storage policy to deploy multiple 100 MW-scale vanadium flow batteries. This large project will be the cornerstone of a new smart-energy grid in Hubei, serving as a critical peak power plant to deliver energy reliability and reduce emissions.
