Redox flow battery based transmission system for increasing renewable energy utilisation and electric vehicle adoption Hrithu Olickel Arumaraj, R M Shereef Department of Electrical Engineering College of Engineering Trivandrum, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India hrithuolickel@gmail.com, rmshereef@gmail.com Abstract—The global urgency to decrease fossil fuel usage, calls to address the constraints in renewable energy(RE) based charging of electric vehicles(EV) and increase RE utilisation immediately. Here, we analyse using redox flow battery(RFB) in EVs’ in combination with a novel method of electrical energy transportation and storage. Suitability of RFB for use in the same is examined in comparison to Li-ion battery. Taking India as an example, financial viability analysis is done using budget allocated for the Green corridor project as a benchmark. The combined solution facilitates EV adoption, grid support initiatives and absorption of RE. While energy density of RFB electrolyte has increased significantly the simultaneous increase in viscosity is the major challenge in establishing the system proposed. The analysis demonstrates the need for focused research into developing low viscosity RFB electrolytes to attain the full potential of the technology. Index Terms—Renewable Energy, Energy Storage, Redox Flow Battery, Electric Vehicles, EV Charging 1 I. I NTRODUCTION Climate change is one of the most life-threatening crisis of the 21 st century visible evidently as rising sea levels, retreating mountain glaciers and catastrophic weather events. These detrimental impacts of uncontrolled fossil fuel usage on our ecosystem are primarily associated with GHG emissions, global warming and resultant rise in temperature. The IPCC’s special report on global warming emphasies that, limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 ◦ C from the pre-industrial levels is the most sustainable and equitable goal for the society [8]. India has joined this effort by accepting the Paris agreement [1], ratifying the 2 nd term of the Kyoto protocol [14] and implementing the National action plan on climate change (NAPCC) [3], focusing on reducing GHG emissions by utiliz- ing renewable energy(RE). A. Background India has an estimated RE potential of 977.2GW from commercially exploitable sources. But the installed capacity of RE extraction plants is only 80.52GW, leaving nearly 91.78% or 896 GW untapped [10]. The National electric report(NER)projects electrical energy requirement of 1,566.0 1 978-1-6654-1259-9/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE billion units(BU) in 2021-22 and 2,047.4 BU in 2026- 27(excluding demand for space cooling and EVs’) [2] and to meet this Govt. of India plans to produce 175 GW from RE sources by 2022 [9]. Due to time difference between energy production from RE and maximum consumer energy demand, RE extraction is limited due to 1) Inadequate transmission infrastructure to evacuate energy derived from the RE sources and — 2) Inadequate energy storage infrastructure. Simulation studies [9] suggests even after the capacity expansion planned under the Green corridor project, RE cur- tailment will be unavoidable to maintain grid balance [13]. B. Motivation and Objective The high dependency on conventional energy sources for power [2] and associated rise in air pollution levels [18] drive the need to tap the left out portion of RE, and promote large scale adoption electric vehicles(EV). The issues preventing sustainable EV acceptance in society are : 1) High initial cost of EVs and recurring cost of battery maintenance 2) Inadequate charging infrastructure 3) Lack of education, awareness and the steep learning curve for using a battery charging system. Developing a solution to the same combined with an suitably tailored RE storage system, could lead to a solution for addressing climate change. Since the issues of RE curtailment, limited RE generation, RE transmission, and EV adoption have been considered as separate issues until now, a multi-faceted solution supporting RE storage, RE transport and EV adoption is proposed in this paper to improve RE usage. The financial and technical feasibility, advantages, drawbacks and impact of the redox flow battery(RFB) based RE storage, transmission and distribution system proposed, are reviewed to promote extensive research into RFB with focus on solving the issues preventing large scale adoption. As the system can be highly beneficial, we hope the analysis will embolden investment and generate intrigue in RFB electrolyte research. 2021 Innovations in Energy Management and Renewable Resources (IEMRE) | 978-1-6654-1259-9/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/IEMRE52042.2021.9386523 Authorized licensed use limited to: College of Engineering - THIRUVANANTHAPURAM. Downloaded on March 31,2021 at 06:34:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.