Redflow Batteries

[Marc]

I've been looking more into adding batteries to my system lately and discovered Adelaide's Redflow today, with an interesting approach to storage with zine-bromine.

Anyone come across this or no any more about it? There's a video of Simon Hackett who was interviewed by Fully Charged on YT that offers a bit more insight.

Web: https://redflow.com/applications/residential/

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/4OHstY_kKUY

[Prof Tournesol]

I'm a shareholder and I was very keen on adding one at home, but, boy, are they expensive for home use! They are selling well for remote use situations like phone towers, particularly as they are so heavy they are virtually unstealable, as well as not being flammable.

[Marc]

Nice to hear from someone who knows a little about them @Prof Tournesol.

Out of interest, what's the ball park price?

[IXXI]

Anecdotally around $17k installed with inverter etc. Will be interested to hear actual price if someone has one at their place. Issues are poor round trip efficiency, need an additional inverter in conjunction with the battery, they need down time to do some sort of maintenance cycle (not a problem if you have two connected as they self manage so both aren't off line). On the plus side, they should last twice as long as a lithium battery, can withstand hot environments (i.e. Australia), they don't use rare earth metals and can do 100% DoD without damage. If I could afford one and had a 20 year time horizon, that's what I would buy. In reality though, I think it will be V2X for me as soon as its available.

[Marc]

Interesting feedback that almost justifies the higher initial outlay, thanks.

That price puts it out of contention for me, but right now I'm focusing on using up as much of the excess locally (EV charger and Pool Heat Pump heating via diversion) instead of feeding back into the grid. If I can get that all running efficiently, and there's still surplus I may revisit batteries I think. I guess the more patient we are buying into batteries the more cost effective it will be.

[Prof Tournesol]

I'm a Redflow shareholder, and it was too expensive for me, even with a (small) shareholder's discount. They are about to introduce their generation 2 batteries, if this flows though to the Z Cell, it may be cheaper

[IXXI]

Hi Professor,

I believe its actually their Gen 3 model. Remember reading somewhere that their recent capital raise fell short putting the future of the gen 3 in question. Supposedly a 30% price reduction if they can get it to manufacturing. That's all form memory, so some details may not be quite right. 

[Marc]

RFX seems to be making gains now, particularly with exporting to other countries.
I bailed out of my shares for greener pastures, but I might regret that decision soon.

[Prof Tournesol]

Redlow is in administration now. Production ceased, support ceased, no buyer found so assets are likely to be liquidated😥

[Marc]

Sad. I heard from someone in the know they scaled up factories/production too quickly without enough customers to support their operation growth. Odd management approach.

[Prof Tournesol]

If you look at the Facebook Redflow Users Group, you'll see the likely cause of the company failure; unreliability. It looks like there was a very very high failure rate under warranty. It leaves existing users with a product that has no warranty, no service support, and an almost inevitable failure