Australian metals company TNG announced on Friday it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Energy Made Clean (EMC) to evaluate the potential of powering its Mount Peake Vanadium Project with solar energy.
Given Mount Peak holds significant deposits of high purity vanadium pentoxide, it’s quite fitting that such a system may also be paired with Vanadium Redox Battery (VRB) energy storage; a type of flow battery. In flow batteries, the chemical interaction of two liquids separated by a special membrane flowing next to each other produces electricity.
Such a system would not only cut TNG’s energy costs and emissions, but also showcase Vanadium Redox Battery technology, which is gaining popularity for large scale energy storage in remote areas.
Flow batteries are low-cost, scalable, durable and require little maintenance – but they do need more space than other technologies, hence being well suited for off-grid and remote installs where space is usually not an issue.
Vanadium energy storage has also captured the attention of the world’s largest renewable energy developer, SunEdison. The company announced in March it intends purchasing up to 1,000 vanadium flow batteries to store solar electricity generated by the company’s rural electrification and solar powered minigrid projects in India.
“As a future supplier of metals which are increasingly used by the ‘green energy’ sector, it is totally appropriate that we should be investing in a renewable energy solution for Mount Peake, and partnering with some of the world’s top practitioners in this area,” said TNG Managing Director, Paul Burton.
TNG says Mount Peake is one of the largest undeveloped vanadium – titanium – iron resources in the world and has the potential to be a top 10 global producer of strategic metals.
Should the TNG solar project with Energy Made Clean go ahead, it would see EMC supplying and installing a solar power system for the Mount Peake mine site and an array of solar panels for the TIVAN refinery site.
It’s been a busy month for EMC – just last week we reported the company had been chosen by Western Australian energy provider Synergy to supply and install a 1.1MWh battery storage system at Alkimos Beach; a new housing estate north of Perth.
