Re:An open-source flow battery kit
by Retric on Tuesday August 13, 2024 @05:18PM
(#41239967)
That just means you get to scale it independently.
While they both need to scale the amount of DC<>AC inverters based on peak power demand. If you want to discharge over 16 hours you’re using 2% of lithium ion’s peak power output and need a huge mess of wiring to move power from each internal cell to that inverter + complex battery packs with individual electronics cooling etc.
Flow batteries on the other hand can use a single pump (+ redundancy) and fat pipe to supply a huge array of ion-exchange membranes which then sit next to the inverters.
While they both need to scale the amount of DC<>AC inverters based on peak power demand. If you want to discharge over 16 hours you’re using 2% of lithium ion’s peak power output and need a huge mess of wiring to move power from each internal cell to that inverter + complex battery packs with individual electronics cooling etc.
Flow batteries on the other hand can use a single pump (+ redundancy) and fat pipe to supply a huge array of ion-exchange membranes which then sit next to the inverters.