VFlowTech, an energy storage solutions provider in Singapore, today announced the raising of US$3 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Wavemaker Partners.
SEEDS Capital, Sing Fuels and other angels also participated.
VFlowTech will use the funds to expand its operations and scale up the production of its “redox flow battery energy storage solutions”.
The startup was established in 2018 by Dr Avishek Kumar (CEO) and Dr Arjun Bhattarai (CTO), in collaboration with Entrepreneur First. It also received generous support from SG Innovate and the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
VFlowTech has developed a low cost, reliable, and long-duration energy storage solution, called vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery. This battery works through the continuous reduction and oxidation reaction between the vanadium redox couples with no detrimental issues and with the cross-mixing of the redox couples. Due to this unique setup, and the battery provides stable performance over 20 years.
The firm’s vision is to achieve diesel-free status in remote and rural areas by providing communities there with low-cost, reliable cleantech solutions.
So far, VFlowTech has built and deployed energy storage systems in Singapore, Australia, and Japan to support various applications, with a pipeline of large-scale infrastructure projects in key markets like Australia and Africa.
VFlowTech also plans to collaborate with strategic partners in other countries to develop and install self-reliant green charging stations for the burgeoning electronic vehicle (EV) industry. Its latest project is to develop an intelligent electric car fast-charging station concept for existing gas stations in South Korea.
“The energy storage market is growing exponentially and plays an important role in the cleantech transition across the globe,” said CEO Kumar. “We are on a mission to reinvent the energy storage solution with our modular vanadium redox flow batteries to enable a 24/7 shift to renewables.”
The company has developed three main modular products, namely 5 kW/30 kWh, 10 kW/100 kWh, and 100 kW/500 kWh systems.
According to a press statement, its 10kW-100kWH system can provide up to two days of energy autonomy on average for most small households and remote communities in the region. It also solves the concerns of performance degradation, thermal runaway, and product safety of current battery systems.
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Unlike lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries, flow battery systems can scale their storage power (kW) and energy (kWh) independently, with power and energy deployments varying depending on the size of the battery stack and the volume of electrolyte contained in the tanks.
As stated by the International Energy Agency’s latest market update, worldwide renewable energy capacity increased by 45 per cent in 2020, the greatest year-on-year growth rate in the last two decades. The “Battery Energy Storage Market, 2021-2028” reported that the sector is slated to be worth US$26.81 billion in 2028, up from US$7.81 billion in 2020.
The development of cheaper long-duration storage than lithium-ion batteries also draws attention from worldwide investors, including tech celebrities Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.
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Image Credit: VFlowTech
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