VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / January 30, 2018 / ZincNyx Energy Solutions Inc. (“ZincNyx” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has commenced development of a scaled-up 20 kW system for use in utility-scale battery storage. The 20kW/160kWh modules represent a 4x increase in both energy and power as compared to ZincNyx’s current 5kW systems. The 20kW system retains all attributes of existing 5kW systems while providing additional benefits, including lower costs and higher energy density along with the ability to serve broader market segments.
This next generation system will continue to be modular and offer capabilities to combine multiple 20kW systems at the electrical interface, allowing for deployment of containerized systems capable of providing up to one Megawatt or more. Key technical features of the system include:
- True flow battery which completely decouples the energy and power capabilities of the system
- Scalable energy capacity through the addition of more zinc and oxygen (“Fuel”)
- Inexpensive Fuel
- Regenerative Fuel cell that does not require fuel replacement
- Eliminates need for transporting, storing or refilling of hydrogen (as compared to hydrogen fuel cell systems)
- Zero emission of greenhouse gases or pollutants
The expanded range of the next generation system addresses the need for long duration energy storage when coupled with renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The system may be housed in a shipping container for deployment at remote locations or installed in free standing racks in warehouse-type environments.
Overview of Technology
ZincNyx has developed a patented regenerative zinc-air flow battery that efficiently stores energy in the form of zinc particles and contains none of the traditional high cost battery commodities such as lithium, vanadium, or cobalt. The technology allows for low cost mass storage of energy and can be deployed into a wide range of applications.
Unlike conventional batteries, which have a fixed energy/power ratio, ZincNyx’s technology uses a fuel tank system that offers flexible energy/power ratios and scalability. The storage capacity is directly tied to the size of the fuel tank and the quantity of recharged zinc fuel, making scalability a major advantage of the flow battery system. In addition, a further major advantage of the zinc-air flow battery is the ability to charge and discharge simultaneously and at different maximum charge or discharge rates since each of the charge and discharge circuits is separate and independent. Other types of standard and flow batteries are limited to a maximum charge and discharge by the total number of cells as there is no separation of the charge and discharge components.