Predicting the cost of a 24 V soluble lead flow battery optimised for PV applications
Predicting the cost of a 24 V soluble lead flow battery optimised for PV applications
Providing reliable electricity from small-scale renewable power is an important challenge for emerging economies. The soluble lead flow battery (SLFB) is a promising battery for this application, as it has a simple architecture making it relatively robust, and a lifetime of 2000 cycles demonstrated at the cell level. Also, the electrolyte is manufacturable directly from spent lead acid batteries. There is a need for techno-economic models to allow the cost/performance of a complete system to be defined and optimised.
Such a model is defined here for the first time and used in a multi-objective optimisation to design a 24 V system for a charging hub in Sierra Leone. A 4 h duration was found to be optimal, and electrolyte for a 3.5 kW/14 kWh system would fit in a 1000 L IBC.
Methanesulfonic acid was found to be the largest cost component of the 4 h system, with graphitic bipolar plates next. Both have low raw material costs, and in an optimistic scenario a total component cost of <£50/kWh would be achieved, half that of current NMC Li-ion cells. The greatest technical risk to achieving low cost is deposit thickness of lead dioxide. This important research gap should be addressed.
Roberts, Diarmid
cf37a1c6-2931-431a-a080-908660f553b6
Fraser, Ewan
5ec334a1-8ab3-4028-8d67-57a19024ad00
Cruden, Andrew
ed709997-4402-49a7-9ad5-f4f3c62d29ab
Wills, Richard
60b7c98f-eced-4b11-aad9-fd2484e26c2c
Brown, Solomon
cb5315e2-ba9d-4e79-9dcf-846978e3114b
30 June 2023
Roberts, Diarmid
cf37a1c6-2931-431a-a080-908660f553b6
Fraser, Ewan
5ec334a1-8ab3-4028-8d67-57a19024ad00
Cruden, Andrew
ed709997-4402-49a7-9ad5-f4f3c62d29ab
Wills, Richard
60b7c98f-eced-4b11-aad9-fd2484e26c2c
Brown, Solomon
cb5315e2-ba9d-4e79-9dcf-846978e3114b
Roberts, Diarmid, Fraser, Ewan, Cruden, Andrew, Wills, Richard and Brown, Solomon
(2023)
Predicting the cost of a 24 V soluble lead flow battery optimised for PV applications.
Journal of Power Sources, 570 (233058), [233058].
(doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233058).
Abstract
Providing reliable electricity from small-scale renewable power is an important challenge for emerging economies. The soluble lead flow battery (SLFB) is a promising battery for this application, as it has a simple architecture making it relatively robust, and a lifetime of 2000 cycles demonstrated at the cell level. Also, the electrolyte is manufacturable directly from spent lead acid batteries. There is a need for techno-economic models to allow the cost/performance of a complete system to be defined and optimised.
Such a model is defined here for the first time and used in a multi-objective optimisation to design a 24 V system for a charging hub in Sierra Leone. A 4 h duration was found to be optimal, and electrolyte for a 3.5 kW/14 kWh system would fit in a 1000 L IBC.
Methanesulfonic acid was found to be the largest cost component of the 4 h system, with graphitic bipolar plates next. Both have low raw material costs, and in an optimistic scenario a total component cost of <£50/kWh would be achieved, half that of current NMC Li-ion cells. The greatest technical risk to achieving low cost is deposit thickness of lead dioxide. This important research gap should be addressed.
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Submitted date: 7 December 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 12 April 2023
Published date: 30 June 2023
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Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank UK Aid from the UK Government through the Faraday Institution and the Transforming Energy Access Program (Grant number FIEE-002 – Reclaimed Electrolyte, Low Cost Flow Battery RELCo-Bat); however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies. They would also like to thank project partner Mobile Power for providing data from a deployment of their MOPO charging hub product.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 476835
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/476835
ISSN: 0378-7753
PURE UUID: c9a26c1a-edeb-4c90-ab47-95a4c7652639
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Date deposited: 17 May 2023 16:42
Last modified: 10 Apr 2024 02:05
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Author:
Diarmid Roberts
Author:
Solomon Brown
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