Perfectly irrelevant! The Chinese source their electrolyte strictly from domestic sources. The plan to build a self-sufficient vertically integrated Vanadium flow battery value chain in China was laid out more than 10 years ago.
As I said before, the Chinese had a clear vision and were strategically planning for the long term. Back in 2011 they had the foresight to agree on a national Vanadium strategy pushing for LDES independence. Back in 2017 Energy Storage News made it crystal clear that the Chinese have a plan, a stragegy to build out a national Vanadium Flow Battery Industry with an aim to build Vanadium batteries from LOCAL SOURCES.
"Perhaps more significantly, Hubei Pingfan was listed in the Chinese government’s 12th five-year
plan of national strategy,
issued in 2011, as a
national pilot enterprise for vanadium. For the Hubei
Zaoyang project, Pu Neng and Pingfan will develop
vanadium electrolytes from local sources,
which the project partners said will also help establish supply chains for the metal for
future
projects."
> Story < These 2017 "future projects" are the very projects that are now being announced. The vertically integrated Vanadium industry built back then will now deliver these batteries, including electrolyte sourced from local material. The existence of massive Chinese Vanadium reserves was the reason to build out this industry in the first place!
So whenever western companies or their marketing vehicle Vanitec talk about huge Chinese Vanadium flow batteries they do it in such a way that makes their readers believe this would lead to higher Vanadium prices globally which I consider misleading. It's just the latest twist in their attempt to to lure money into their members's stocks.