To achieve global climate goals, a shift to renewable electricity is needed. Germany, in particular, aims to be greenhouse gas neutral in 2045. Regarding the global power sector, a 9.6% increase in the share of renewable sources in electricity generation has been reported for the year 2024. Predicting that solar and wind will play a major role in the generation of electricity from renewable sources, efficient and reliable large-scale energy storage technologies are needed to balance the volatility of electricity generation. Vanadium redox flow batteries appear as promising solutions in this context. In general, their environmental impact is comparable to lithium-ion batteries used in similar applications. However, a previously conducted life cycle assessment of vanadium redox flow batteries has shown that the battery’s efficiency ratio, the battery’s lifetime, and the electricity generation technology used for charging the battery heavily impact its environmental performance, leading to relative advantages or disadvantages compared to lithium-ion batteries depending on the specific battery model and use conditions. For example, a 10% variation in the efficiency ratio of the vanadium redox flow battery can lead to changes in its environmental impact of up to 23% in the impact category climate change . This paper ties in with previous research and presents a scenario-based life cycle assessment of different assumptions concerning the mentioned parameters. Given the intended application of the battery in residential areas, twelve scenarios were developed to explore how variations in efficiency ratio, lifetime and electricity source affect overall environmental performance (51–173 g CO2-eq./kWh). In total, the paper provides a contribution to comprehensively assess vanadium redox flow batteries in terms of environmental impact and enables a more precise comparison with lithium-ion batteries in future research. Thereby it supports identification of contexts in which the use of vanadium redox flow batteries may offer particular environmental benefits.
Trautmann et al. (Thu,) studied this question.