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croninsiglos t1_j2zoj3a wrote

This is not a new or novel solution and these have been used in industry for some time now.

Entire utility scale solutions exist such as a facility in China which has a 100 MW model. Compared to Lithium based batteries, flow batteries suffer from low energy density and low charge/discharge rates.

Here's their argument for flow batteries:

> With lithium-ion, the power and energy are fused together in a single package. If you want to have longer duration lithium above four hours [discharge duration] you’re basically buying power capacity you don’t need, that’s redundant

> -Lockheed Martin business development director Roger Jenkins

Which, if you know anything about batteries, is the dumbest excuse imaginable. This is likely simply to not rely on foreign suppliers of necessary metals and that makes more sense than purposely using an inferior technology because the current stuff is too capable.

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80percentlegs t1_j3114t2 wrote

He is right about long duration, but doesn’t quite get into the details. There are duration limits to Li+ mostly because short circuit current ratings of the DC inputs on the inverter limit how many batteries you can put behind a single inverter. This means to get longer durations, you need to derate the power output of the inverter, but if you’re trying to hit a certain plant power capacity that means buying more inverters. That means your plant has a lot of potential power capacity in the inverters that is not being used.

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