(751b) Design Aspects of Flow Batteries for Large Scale Energy Storage

Large scale energy storage technology is needed to facilitate integrating renewable energy generation technologies, such as wind and solar, into the electric grid because these energy generation technologies are inherently intermittent and thus matching supply to load demand is a challenge.  Also, energy storage is needed for modernizing the grid into a “smart” electricity distribution system. There is a large variety of potential energy storage solutions available for this broad range of applications and understanding the various operating and economic constraints and requirements is necessary to choose a technology.      Flow batteries of various chemistries are gaining attention again in recent years because of these markets and opportunities and of the inherent advantage of flow batteries.  The advantages and disadvantages, and their technical and economic challenges will be addressed for a number of approaches.  The presentation will focus its attention of electrode materials, electrode  design, and cell design for redox flow batteries.