VRB contributes 10 kw storage system to solar home project
Vancouver-based VRB Power, maker of an innovative redox battery, has sold a 10 kilowatt-hour energy storage system to the Phil Little Design Foundation, a not-for-profit housing developer in Queensland, Australia. The unit will be delivered in January.
The system, known as the VRB-ESS, “will be installed in an energy efficient, modular, solar powered ‘kit’ home,” according to the company. “These homes which are powered by solar energy will use the VRB-ESS to provide an un-interruptible supply of electrical energy. The home contains many unique features that greatly assist in minimising the necessity for grid connections.”
For an overview of VRB, check out this post from May 05. The company has two battery technologies, both relatively “green” in design and function, that can handle different loads. Systems can be as small as 2.5 kilowatts or scale up as large as 100 megawatts, and are ideal as back-up power, time-shifting of energy use (for example, from peak to off-peak) and for providing “firm” capacity to intermittent renewable energy systems based on wind and solar. Depending on the size, the technology can appeal to individual homes or utilities and everyone in between.
“Upon successful completion of the demonstration phase of the modular solar home project, the VRB energy storage system could form a fundamental element in the commercialised final product. Where solar homes are grouped, the variable power and capacity features of VRB energy storage systems can allow for the economic interconnection of systems to accommodate flunctuating levels of power demand from home owners with differing energy use profiles,” according to the company.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
