NEWTON COUNTY – On Wednesday, Aug. 2, Stryten Energy and Snapping Shoals EMC celebrated the installation of a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) system. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at Snapping Shoals’ office on Brown Bridge Road. The VRFB system marks the first of its kind in Georgia.
The partnership between Stryten Energy and Snapping Shoals will demonstrate the VRFB’s energy storage capabilities and evaluate other uses for its long-duration technology. The battery promotes clean, renewable energy and holds a capacity of 100 kilowatt hours, which equates to 26,000 AA batteries.
Attendees of the ceremony included U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, representatives from the General Assembly, a representative from Senator Jon Ossoff’s office, Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols and leaders from both Stryten Energy and Snapping Shoals.
Tim Echols spoke on his enthusiasm for clean energy, comparing the benefits of the VRFB to bacon.
“We are entering a very high tech time, a very smart time in the energy world, where devices like this make everything better,” Echols said. “It’s kind of like bacon. It just makes everything better out there. It makes solar better. It makes resiliency better. It makes the Snapping Shoals grid better. It is bacon in a box.”
Though the VRFB is currently a “pilot project,” it will directly affect Snapping Shoals customers. The battery is connected to Snapping Shoals’ utility grid, but will only travel a certain distance due to its small size as a demo.
According to Robbie Young, vice president of Engineering and Developing Technologies for Snapping Shoals, effectiveness of the VRFB will be assessed by monitoring devices that provide energy values for engineers to analyze.
With the installation of the new VRFB, Young hopes to gain a better understanding of the battery in order to improve it for future use.
“We hope to learn a good bit about the technology itself,” Young said. “Our engineers here will be watching it and we hope to be able to get reliability and efficiency up where it’s cost effective. It will be used on a larger scale.”
Stryten designed the VRFB over the course of 18 months with three principles in mind: safety, reliability and recyclability. Scott Childers, vice president of essential power at Stryten, is also hopeful about the future of the project and its benefits for the community.
“We’re in an active energy trading market right here,” Childers said. “Snapping Shoals is every day of the week, buying and selling energy on the market. That gives us the ability to test the performance of the system and the economics of the system is one place. This is a really super opportunity for us.
“This project is far reaching, from simply reducing your electric bill to driving energy independence, and even national security. The flow battery technology we’re using here at this location is set up and our joint relationship with Snapping Shoals is seriously a one of a kind scenario. We look forward and it gives us the ability to solve some of the world’s most pressing energy challenges together.”
