REDT

[gbjbaanb]

I've been following these for a while, now bought some!

they were mentioned by MrC recently, but what he failed to mention was that although they have exited their energy business, they have also made orders 3 fold over previous sales.

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exch ... 38200.html

Now they have been a small company making these grid-scale energy storage units using NASA technology, and have been struggling to get acceptance of them in the market - after all, nobody really wants grid batteries as they're too busy adding more renewable generation. But that will end eventually as renewables are too intermittent to power the grid by themselves; but also there is a market for areas that cannot be added to the grid - either because the grid company wants too much money to upgrade the connection (eg NG, solar farms today get charged a fortune to be connected as the grid is designed around centralised generation) or places where there is no grid, such as Africa.

Its the latter where they are making strides now, I assume because the technology has proven itself, and their initial sites can show that the things work.

So South Africa is now a market with their units, and Botswana has bought 14 of them, and they have just sold a unit to Melbourne university. this later is the most exciting one for me - Australia has huge problems with its power network, brown outs are reasonably common and nobody wants to build more fossil fuel power plants. RedT's sales tactics seem to be to get a unit in place to demonstrate to the locals, and from there sales roll in.

It is a small cap, and it is early days for grid scale batteries, but these are much more cost effective long-term than Elon Musk's lithium-ion batteries and more environmentally friendly (relatively speaking!). they are also launching their 3rd generation units this year which (I assume) will be more cost effective. Given the push for renewable generation policies around the world, I think these are a good long-term bet. There's little other manufacturer that makes such things, if you exclude Musk, and Lithium-ion batteries really aren't suitable for grid-scale daily charge/discharge cycling, so Red''s units should be quickly cost effective compared to them (Musk has economy of scale to back his pricing)

So although its little known and thus a quiet stock that is reasonably volatile, its got huge potential and is only just starting to take off.

[jackdaww]

RedT Energy and its subsidiaries develops and supplies durable & robust energy storage systems based on proprietary vanadium redox flow technology for on and off-grid applications.

A very small cap energy storage business that has been building up it's technology for a few years now, but finally has things to sell.
These are storage containers containing fancy tech that stores energy without the disadvantages of traditional batteries.

it seems it works but needs space , which shouldnt be a problem .

============================

i am also impressed by this outfit , and took a small position recently .

for me this is a very speculative punt , where i should not be surprised to lose most of it .

[dspp]

There's little other manufacturer that makes such things, if you exclude Musk, and Lithium-ion batteries really aren't suitable for grid-scale daily charge/discharge cycling, so Red''s units should be quickly cost effective compared to them (Musk has economy of scale to back his pricing).

1. There have been plenty of other storage solutions around for years. The market is swamped with Asian battery-based offerings, one of which has a Musk brand on the box (and there are others).

2. Do you know what the cyclic duties are for the various Li offerings ? Please quote hard data. I myself put some up here on TLF a while back if that helps you.

DYOR ........

dspp

[gbjbaanb]

No it doesn't help me.

Vandium v Lithium has been compared many times. The tech is different for different purposes, but for a grid-connected storage, you want it to discharge completely every day (if you have energy left in the battery, then you've bought too much generation capacity), and even though that's a tricky thing to calculate for renewables, you typically want a large rather than shallow discharge. Lithium batteries do not last as long when fully charged and discharged - making some statistical analysis difficult (ie my phone may last a long time, but that's because I top it up before it falls below 50%, if I only charged it when it was nearly empty, its life would be considerably shorter. ie its capacity would reduce much quicker). Vanadoium redox flow batteries do not suffer this problem.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/art ... ntest.html

That was written in 2014, when there was no realistic vanadium batteries being marketed as large scale options. This is where things are just beginning to change.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0216310566
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca ... a26ced5bde

both offer insight into the benefits of redox batteries for grid-scale storage. The size required precludes them from home storage (though I do wonder what a fridge-sized box could store) or for car batteries as the energy density isn't particularly brilliant. But the long lifespan of the things and the charge/discharge cycles are exactly what grids require.

For places like Africa with their distributed generation models (ie solar panels in the middle of nowhere) then these are great. I read a report once about mines, where the author suggested replacing the usual diesel generator used to power the pumps with a wind turbine and battery that would reduce the energy costs by half (and be way more environmental, and secure - trucking diesel across dodgy countries could be easily disrupted)

so its not a "buy this now, rich by next year", its more a "things are changing and this one looks like being right at the start of something". they seem to be doing it right, selling what they can and ramping up slowly rather than trying to take over the world immediately, failing and ending up bust or in massive debt (currently - assets £14.6m, debt: £4.6m)

[dspp]

No it doesn't help me.

Vandium v Lithium has been compared many times. .........

For places like Africa with their distributed generation models (ie solar panels in the middle of nowhere) then these are great. I read a report once about mines, where the author suggested replacing the usual diesel generator used to power the pumps with a wind turbine and battery that would reduce the energy costs by half (and be way more environmental, and secure - trucking diesel across dodgy countries could be easily disrupted)

I've written some of these reports, after having done the engineering/numerical analysis. Mine clearly wasn't the one you read A lot depends on cyclic performance of the storage vs load vs charge, all in context of $$. I really suggest you check the numbers. It is not obvious that flow batteries will get into the market.

DYOR

regards, dspp

[gbjbaanb]

And I say that you need to check the numbers. What you might have done in the past is outdated today. The cost effectiveness of these things is a lot better than it was when they were still being developed. I've reads many reports written in 2013 that say "vanadium batteries might be the next big thing, if they can get the cost down". A fair enough assessment at the time, but today the cost has come down to the point where they are being deployed in number. Small numbers today but that's because its just getting going.

Here's a more recent link that talks of cost, and despite the title its not really about Vandium batteries but grid storage.
http://www.kitco.com/commentaries/2017- ... arket.html

His little chart showing LCOE of 33c per kWh is comparable to both CRB and Lithium, but the VRB will last a lot longer, even if it costs more up-front.

So at the moment, its going to be costly for grid-storage for renewables (not that its needed as we don't generate nearly enough to bother storing it anyway), but very cost-effective for off-grid storage.

Note also the government offers 40% grants for capital equipment via the new RDPE scheme.

[dspp]

And I say that you need to check the numbers. What you might have done in the past is outdated today. The cost effectiveness of these things is a lot better than it was when they were still being developed. I've reads many reports written in 2013 that say "vanadium batteries might be the next big thing, if they can get the cost down". A fair enough assessment at the time, but today the cost has come down to the point where they are being deployed in number. Small numbers today but that's because its just getting going.

Here's a more recent link that talks of cost, and despite the title its not really about Vandium batteries but grid storage.
http://www.kitco.com/commentaries/2017- ... arket.html

His little chart showing LCOE of 33c per kWh is comparable to both CRB and Lithium, but the VRB will last a lot longer, even if it costs more up-front.

So at the moment, its going to be costly for grid-storage for renewables (not that its needed as we don't generate nearly enough to bother storing it anyway), but very cost-effective for off-grid storage.

Note also the government offers 40% grants for capital equipment via the new RDPE scheme.

I have run the numbers for both on & offgrid, and at various points on the cost decline curve, and in many other points of the deployment space which has other relevant parameters.

The 40% is available to both flow and non-flow.

Lithiums have the faster cost reduction curve.

Lithiums for stationary applications get to use second-hand mobile lithiums. Flows get no such free ride catapult to mass market.

Lithiums have the wider scalability, flow not.

Lithiums have more graceful degradation at scale, flow not.

I have colleagues working on both sides of this game. Good luck to them all. Personally I have concluded that I can see no defensible tech space in this and so have chosen to have no particular skin in the game at this stage. I am not a ra-ra merchant for either technology, my preference is for both. I am investing in this game through other pathways.

Good luck. DYOR.

dspp