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Vanadium: The metal that may soon be powering your neighbourhood

by lanfear63
5 replies
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BBC News - Vanadium: The metal that may soon be powering your neighbourhood

10 percent of the Hawaiian population now has solar panels due to an abundance of sun and the fact that electricity is expensive, all oil and coal fossil fuels are imported.

It is saying that too much power is generated at certain times of the day as they are feeding back some into the grid which is overloading it!
  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    Seems like there would be a way to store it - or to reduce it at peak times.

    Right now America doesn't have much vanadium mining. If we fall out with countries we import it from we do have sources of it. Might actually be a good idea to start mining this on our own instead of importing if it's going to be important in the solar industry. We definitely have to stop relying on China for our vanadium. They are always at risk of limiting export. If we go cold war with them, we have no REM mines open and only a few vanadium mines. The one being made in Nevada right now is claiming it will be the "greenest" mine in America, so I like the sound of that one.
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    Sal
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    Sounds like a good idea. Likely, the solution will be a combination of technologies. For example, it's possible to use solar dishes and troughs to heat "super salt" solutions. The super salts can store the heat for some time, then use the heat to produce steam to power steam generators when needed.

    Also Hawaii could use generators powered by the ocean waves. Waves are a consistent source of power available throughout the day.

    And wind power may also be an option in many costal areas.

    A combo of different battery types could also be part of the solution. Vanadium, lithium and nickel-iron batteries all have there own pros and cons. Nickel iron batteries were invented by Thomas Edison and the tech is in the public domain. They are expensive to make, but can last from decades to 100 years.

    Nickel



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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    For anyone interested, here's more info about super salts, aka molten salts:

    Thermal energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    It should also be noted that concentrated solar power using parabolic solar dishes and troughs is more efficient at capturing the sun's energy than solar panels are.
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    All good solutions, Kurt. One plus for nickel/iron batteries is that we have plenty of both metals right here in the states so no need to rely on import to cover our needs.
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    • Profile picture of the author lanfear63
      What was interesting me about this is were Hawaiians being heavily subsidised in the first place to have the panels installed on condition that they sell the excess power back to the grid cheaply (or for free) to help bring down overall the cost of energy. Were they not being able to be self contained and off-grid if they wanted too?

      Here in TX a guy on our street has one side of his roof devoted to panels (10 years old) and feeds a bit back into the grid but never pays anything for electric bills, that's all year round.

      Perhaps the weather and sun their is not as consistent as here as it seems to indicate.
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