Switzerland has finished digging a massive hole on the German border that will be used to house the world’s most powerful underground battery.
Energy firm Flexbase will be building the giant redox flow battery. which is expected to be connected to the grid at some point in 2029 and will be capable of storing up to 2.1GWh of energy at any one time, with a power output of 1.2GW.
The facility will be based on vanadium flow battery technology developed by Invinity Energy Systems. Many grid-scale batteries are underpinned by lithium-ion technology, which is also used in electronics and electric vehicles. Redox flow batteries on the other hand store energy in large tanks of liquid electrolytes. They are typically non-flammable and do not degrade over decades of heavy cycling, unlike lithium-ion, which have limited lifespans and become less efficient over time. Redox flow technology can also be easily scaled up according to need by building larger storage tanks.
At 2.1GWh, it will easily be the...