The constantly increasing proportion of renewable energy supplied to the grid means that energy storage systems are becoming increasingly important. Until now, very few energy storage technologies have been able to reach the required levels of technical maturity at competitive costs, especially in the area of electricity storage. Since 2017 the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) are working closely together as an alliance to intensify research activities in the field of electrochemical energy storage systems and to establish a joint international research center for stationary energy storage (CENELEST) at UNSW in Sydney, Australia.
In search of truly competitive solutions for storing energy from renewable resources, the SONAR-team sets out to develop a framework for the simulation-based screening of electroactive materials for organic redox flow batteries (RFBs) – in aqueous and non-aqueous solutions. This will help to reduce the cost and time-to-market and thus strengthen the competitiveness of the EU’s battery industry.