One of the takeaways from Asian Ferro Alloy Conf. 2024
Emerging role for vanadium redox batteries
In terms of vanadium, delegates were less pessimistic because – despite four-fifths of all production currently going to the steel industry – the emerging market for vanadium redox batteries in energy storage systems could serve as a new demand driver for upstream vanadium raw materials. That would offset falling demand from the weak steel market resulting from sluggish activity in China’s real estate and infrastructure sectors, sources said.
“Nearly 80% of vanadium supply is used in steel production, while vanadium redox batteries currently only consume 5% of total vanadium supplies,” a vanadium source told Fastmarkets on the sidelines of the conference.
“We have seen no improvement in downstream steel demand because the real estate and infrastructure industries remained weak [even after] stimulus measures were announced by the Chinese government to boost the home sales in 2023,” the source added.
Around 9,800-10,000 tonnes of vanadium pentoxide are needed to produce 1 GWh vanadium redox battery electrolyte, sources said.
In 2022, the EV Tank research institute, jointly released a White Paper on the development of China’s vanadium redox battery Industry with the Yiwei Institute of Economics, which predicted that the installed capacity of vanadium redox batteries will reach 2.3 GW in 2025 and 4.5 GW in 2030.
It is predicted that, by 2030, demand for vanadium pentoxide in vanadium batteries will reach to around 100,000 tonnes – the same amount used in steel production in 2023, sources said.
“As more and more vanadium redox batteries are [used] in energy storage projects, it will certainly drive up demand for vanadium, but it may still take several years,” a second vanadium source said.
https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/four-key-takeaways-from-fastmarkets-asian-ferro-alloys-conference-2024/