Is the U.S. serious about developing new battery technology to power the future? Right now, it looks more silly than serious. A highly promising new battery was developed at a cost of $15 million in a U.S. government lab, but then the U.S. Department of Energy awarded many of the manufacturing rights to China in violation of its own licensing rules. Now, China is about to bring online one of the largest battery farms to ever power a major city.
And not just any battery farm. It uses vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB), a new technology that enables large, long-lived batteries that provide grid-scale energy storage to be competitive and that ensures they won’t catch fire, as lithium-ion batteries often do. The new batteries are a major advance in improving battery-storage efficiency and longevity. When power demand shoots up and there is no spare capacity to generate more power, the stored energy inside the VRFB batteries can meet that need. …
Joanne Skievaski, the chief financial officer of a Washington State company called Forever Energy, has been trying to get a DOE license to make the new batteries for over a year. “This is technology made from taxpayer dollars,” Skievaski told NPR. “It was invented in a national lab. [Now] it’s deployed in China, and it’s held in China. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.”
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