Australia’s Redflow Completes California Flow Battery Project

Queensland-headquartered Redflow announced yesterday it had completed a 2 MWh flow battery based energy storage system project for Anaergia, Inc.’s Rialto Bioenergy Facility in San Bernardino County, California.

The project – which represents Redflow’s biggest single deployment of batteries to date – is comprised of 192 zinc-bromine flow batteries housed in 12 x 160 kWh Redflow Energy Pod  units clustered into four strings, and tied to four 125 kW Dynapower inverters.

“Each of the four battery strings have now been successfully charged and discharged and have passed critical acceptance testing criteria,” states the company. “The final test of the entire system will be executed in January when Siemens integrate the battery into the microgrid controller and the facility can absorb the entire 2 MWh load of the energy storage system.”

The Rialto Bioenergy Facility will be able to convert 700 tons of food waste and 300 tons of biosolids per day into renewable natural gas, renewable electricity and organic fertilizer. It is one of North America’s largest facilities of this nature.

Redflow CEO and Managing Director Tim Harris said completion of the project represented a significant milestone for the company, providing a high visibility reference installation in the MWh range for the USA and other global markets.

“As a result of this successful installation, we are substantially increasing our profile and accelerating our activities in the world’s largest market for energy storage.”

The company says it has received multiple enquiries from customers and companies requesting a visit to the Rialto Bioenergy Facility site next month to check out Redflow’s installation.

Redflow Gen3 Status

Redflow manufactures the world’s smallest commercially available flow battery¹ – the 10kWh ZBM2 (commercial/industrial) and the ZCell; a residential solar battery system based on the ZBM2².

The company has been working towards releasing a new model called the Gen3 for quite some time, which is expected to shave 30% off manufacturing costs while maintaining current performance levels.

Gen3 battery customer trials began a year ago and in February, Redflow anticipated commencing commercial Gen3 battery production in Thailand this year.

There has been little news on the Gen3 in the last couple of months, but Redflow’s September 2021 Quarterly Activities Report released in late October indicates a spanner had been thrown in the works by COVID, as it has a tendency to do – the best laid plans and all that.

A “small number” of staff at Redflow’s Thailand plant had been infected (thankfully, all recovered) and as many companies have experienced, there were delays with material supply and equipment servicing. This has resulted in initial production of the Gen3 battery being pushed into next year.

“Redflow’s revised program now forecasts the introduction of Gen3 into production in Q4 of FY22.”

No doubt the company is particularly frustrated with the delay as it has previously said the Gen3 is core to its commercial success.