China's first megawatt-level iron-chromium flow battery energy storage project, located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, is currently under construction and about to be put into commercial use, said its operator State Power Investment Corp.
Built by the State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC), the project set a new world record for iron-chromium flow battery storage capacity. Consisting of 34 homegrown battery stacks and four groups of storage tanks, it can store up to 6,000 kWh of electricity every time.
An iron-chromium flow battery, a new energy storage application technology with high performance and low costs, can be charged by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and discharged during peak hours.
Its production line in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, is expected to produce flow batteries in June. The company has also planned to build several factories in Guangdong, Shandong, Hubei and Zhejiang provinces, with a total production capacity of zinc-iron flow batteries reaching gigawatt-level.
WeView, an energy-storage company headquartered in Shanghai, started its first smart production line of zinc-iron flow batteries in January in Yancheng, east China's Jiangsu Province. Its production line in Zhuhai, south China's Guangdong Province, is expected to produce flow batteries in June.
An energy-storage system charges when wind power or photovoltaic power generates a large volume of electricity or when the power consumption is low, and discharges otherwise.