19 | Matt Harper — Co-founder & Chief Commercial Officer, Invinity Energy Systems

♾ That's right: Invinity, with a V for vanadium. How many square meters does it take to set up 1 MWh of vanadium flow batteries? For the answer, we turn to Matt Harper, CCO and Co-founder at Invinity, in discussion with BioZen's CEO Nate Kirchhofer.

Invinity Energy Systems was formed from the merger of RedT and Avalon in 2020 and focuses on vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) for large-scale, long duration energy storage (LDES) solutions. VRFBs directly complement renewable energy projects, with superiority over lithium-ion batteries in longevity, cycle life, and operational flexibility.

According to Matt, Invinity makes VRFBs more accessible and practical by adopting a modular, plug-and-play design that is 100% ready to go off the factory floor, significantly reducing deployment time and increasing adoption. With over 1200 of their "VS3" units in the wild (the largest fleet of flow batteries of any company), Invinity has a constant stream of data for continual performance improvement and understanding of the varied demands of LDES technologies.

The conversation continues to Invinity's experience in the challenges of site-specific installations as well as the benefits of their merger during the pandemic, which provided resilience through dual operational supply chains as well as reaffirmed that people make the technology work. Matt comments that his career goal is to "work on hard, meaningful problems with smart, dedicated people ... It's the people who I'm working alongside to make this stuff happen that makes the journey worthwhile."

We hear some about Invinity's next-generation product, Mistral, developed in collaboration with Siemens Gamesa. Mistral targets the wind energy sector with a modular design offering improved scalability and cost-effectiveness, and will be deployed for a variety of projects, including collaborations with Everdura in Taiwan, PNNL in the U.S., and several rural electrification projects.

Recorded 28 September 2023.

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