Adding value to Australia’s historically underutilised battery proposition

To truly seize on the opportunity afforded by the imminent battery boom, Australia needs to look beyond its historic role as a supplier of raw materials and broaden the horizons by adding value with downstream products and manufacturing, according to a recent Future Battery Industries report. Pv magazine Australia caught up with Vincent Algar, managing director of Australian Vanadium Limited – a company operating in this promising yet thorny realm.

July 6, 2021 Bella Peacock

VSun's residential battery design

VSun

Australia currently supplies around half of the world’s lithium as well as a plethora of the other raw materials and precious metals needed to make batteries. This wealth of buried assets already contributes around $1.3 billion to our GDP, a figure set to grow massively as the world electrifies over the coming decade and demand for batteries booms. But far more wealth could be on the table if Australia can manage to start value adding and diversifying its battery industries onshore, according to the report Future Charge: Building Australia’s Battery Industries, commissioned by Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre.

Western Australian company Australian Vanadium Limited (ASX: AVL) is bringing some of these propositions into reality, with endeavours ranging from classic mining to battery design to diversification into ethical cobalt supplies. The company’s managing director Vincent Algar told pv magazine Australia the company is seeking through its diversification to have “all the bases covered” for both greening the grid and the vehicle fleet.

The imminent battery boom: from lithium-ion to redox flows

While the Future Battery Industries’ report focuses heavily on lithium-ion, the battery chemistry at the heart of electric vehicles, Australian Vanadium is focussing on the flow battery market. Despite flow batteries technology being well established, it is no where near as prevalent as the lithium-ion makeup used by giants like Tesla.

Interest in flow batteries is steadily growing however, with a recent market study published by Global Industry Analysts projecting the global market for flow batteries to grow from US$290.5 million in 2020 to US$961.9 million by 2026, with an impressive compound annual growth rate of 22.7% over the analysis period.

Australia is home to considerable vanadium deposits – which Australian Vanadium Limited (AVL) hopes to use. In fact, Algar says the deposits in Western Australia can “easily dominate the battery supply chain for vanadium inside and outside Australia.”

AVL is currently establishing its vanadium mine in Gabanintha, which is almost smack bang in the middle of Western Australia. The Australian Vanadium Project, as its called, has been awarded Major Project Status by the federal government. Its vision, however, is bigger than simply digging up the raw materials and shipping them overseas.

“AVL is planning to construct a vanadium electrolyte manufacturing facility in WA, adding future downstream value to the vanadium when it’s extracted and providing a revenue stream for the company in the meantime,” Algar told pv magazine Australia.

AVL also recently identified a Cobalt-Nickel-Copper sulphide component in is project. “Our work with Bryah Resources (ASX:BYH), of which AVL holds 5%, has helped quantify the resource and prove recovery via normal sulphide floatation,” Algar added.

“AVL’s vanadium products will be extracted close to Geraldton from the concentrate we will produce on site at Meekatharra. The vanadium products will be used in steel markets and battery markets, specifically as the feedstock for electrolyte in vanadium redox flow batteries,” he added.

Vsun – AVL’s flow battery demand activator

In 2016, Australian Vanadium set up subsidiary VSun to drive market demand for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). “VRFBs’ target market is long-duration off and on-grid energy storage batteries capturing large scale renewable energy and diesel replacement,” Algar explained. “These are stationary storage batteries suited to the long life and durability.”

In January, VSun announced its plans to develop a vanadium redox flow battery for the Australian residential market, with the company previously working on a number of other off-grid and commercial projects. While the company remains primarily devoted to flow batteries, it is also seizing on opportunities to expand into new corners of the industry.

VSUN Energy sells Standalone Power System (SPS) based on a vanadium redox flow battery to a Australian customers.
VSun

“The energy transition is also hinged upon changing over the vehicle fleet to high power batteries such as the current suite of Li-ion chemistries. Included in those chemical makeups (for example NMC – nickel, manganese, cobalt) are lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese.

“AVL and Bryah Resources have the ability to enter these supply chains for all the nickel, manganese and cobalt components with the defined tailings stream from the project, as well as Bryah’s manganese resources. Copper will play a critical role in the electrification of the global vehicle fleet as a vital part of motors. Copper is also present in the metal suite at AVL’s project,” Algar said.

The discovery of these additional metals in the project’s deposit was only announced in June, with Algar saying further testing is required, which will be overseen by Bryah Resources as it conducts a pre-feasibility study. “That will outline the recoveries and potential revenues from the base metal recovery circuit. If the contained metal values are considered, this should be a very interesting exercise, of interest to many players in the supply chain,” Algar added.

Future Charge: Building Australia’s Battery Industries

In regard to Future Battery Industries’ report, Algar pointed out that while manufacturing batteries and adding higher value downstream products is indeed attractive, it’s no easy feat. “There is huge effort required to produce the pre-cursor quality materials and then move to cell manufacture here,” he said.

In its report, Future Battery Industries’ called on governments to invest more and proposed allowing battery makers to access the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the lead financiers of renewable projects in Australia.

“I think the Australian government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiatives, along with R&D funding, is a great platform for developing this industrial base,” Algar said.

“Caution must be taken, however, to avoid bias towards certain technologies, as well as picking fights we can’t win. Manufacturing of high purity pre-cursors is a great initial step that can lead to later downstream capability. I would think we should start there,” he added.