Scott Childers, Vice President, Stryten Energy

The US market for stationary energy storage is now growing exponentially, with weekly announcements of project originations, construction, and commissioning of systems which are each in the hundreds of Megawatts and Megawatt-hours.  (And in some cases, Gigawatt-hours.)  Almost all of the deployed systems are lithium-ion with short discharge durations of one to four hours, utilizing active materials sourced outside the US and manufactured by non-US companies.  Meanwhile, demand for energy storage systems that provide a medium discharge duration of four to ten hours is materializing in several areas in the US, including those with winter peaking.  It is this market segment for which flow batteries are particularly fit for purpose.  There are growing US companies and companies from friendly countries now winning substantial flow battery projects and in the early stages of establishing US flow battery manufacturing.  Also, market interest is developing in energy storage systems that provide long discharge durations of ten to one hundred hours.  The technologies serving this market segment best may turn out to be mechanical and thermal, with a diversity of US and other companies endeavoring to mature their systems into commercial products.