Quino Energy’s organic flow battery is expected to provide backup power capacity for up to 100 percent of energy demand for a healthcare facility in California, providing critical energy resiliency in an area where extreme weather and associated grid strain is prevalent. REM talked to Quino CEO Eugene Beh about flow batteries and Quino’s California flow battery project and what this means for increased storage duration, resiliency and safety.
Can you tell me more about Quino Energy and what it does?
We are a startup developing water-based flow batteries that store electrical energy in organic molecules called quinones for commercial and grid applications. This is essential as more renewables come online and needs shift towards longer durations of storage due to rising energy consumption and climate challenges.
Water-based flow batteries are a type of redox flow battery, storing energy in tanks containing liquid electrolyte solutions. Flow batteries are well-suited for storage durations greater than four hours. Quino is developing organic flow batteries targeting 8-24 hours of storage and shorter duration, multi-cycle per day applications and is in the process of deploying its first commercial system in collaboration with Long Hill Energy partners, with funding from the California Energy Commission (CEC).
What’s the extent of the risk from extreme weather and grid strain in California at the moment and what are the main causal factors?
Climate change has contributed to rising temperatures that significantly increase electricity demands, placing strain on electrical infrastructure. 81% of major U.S. power outages from 2000 to 2023 were attributed to weather, and weather-related outages doubled when compared with the time period between 2014-2023, and 2000-2009. Furthermore, California was reported as one of the top three states with the most weather-related outages.
A significant amount of grid strain is currently attributable to the growth of AI data centers, which have very “spiky” energy demand that fluctuates many times a minute, too rapidly for traditional baseload such as natural gas or coal to effectively respond to. It’s projected that electricity demand globally from data centers will more than double by 2030. To increase grid resiliency, removing strain will be key, and long-duration storage options hold a lot of potential.
What are the main resiliency and safety benefits available from flow batteries?
Aqueous flow batteries specifically offer benefits in fire safety. They’re nonflammable because the battery reactants are dissolved in water, and they produce no highly-flammable hydrogen gas during charging, unlike other types of flow batteries.This makes them more reliable and reduces their risk when deployed in highly-populated areas. Additionally, water-based flow batteries are made with organic, non-corrosive materials, in contrast to vanadium redox flow batteries, so they are compatible with carbon steel tanks and can repurpose oil and fuel tanks for reactant storage purposes.
When it comes to resiliency for flow batteries, we often draw a comparison to cars. For example, say a standard car can last four hours on a tank. To double that time without refueling, you can either use two cars, or use a bigger fuel tank. In flow battery technology, the electrolyte serves as the fuel tank and it can be developed in any size without need for consideration to the battery stack’s power, or the car engine. This greatly increases the storage capacity and energy resiliency.
Finally, flow batteries have excellent cycle life that is independent of the depth of discharge or the number of cycles. This stands in contrast to lithium-ion batteries, where the lifetime is severely impacted by deep cycling or by a large number of cycles. This means that even though flow batteries have traditionally been thought of as an LDES technology, they are actually well suited for short-duration energy storage of 1-4 hours, in a use case where multiple cycles per day are expected. The data centers mentioned above are a very good example of this use case.
Can you tell me more about Quino’s flow battery technology and what advantages it has over other similar flow batteries?
Quino’s organic, aqueous flow battery specifically offers advantages in its long duration storage capabilities to ease strains on the power grid. The battery can accommodate storage for durations longer than traditional technology options like lithium-ion batteries. This approach also reduces supply chain challenges by avoiding the use of critical minerals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as the materials are made from coal tar chemicals such as phthalic anhydride which are abundant and available domestically.
Additionally, flow batteries are more cost-effective than lithium-ion alternatives and reduce waste because the materials are made from commercial dyes in a zero-waste production process. A common concern related to organic flow batteries is the degradation of organic reactants, but we’ve addressed the issue. Our materials have a degradation 10 times slower than lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries and have a simplified end of life recycling process.
What are the predicted savings on energy bills resulting from deployment of the technology?
We expect organic flow batteries to enable significant cost savings over the technology’s lifecycle when deployed. For example, a proposed 5 MWh flow battery system installed in Los Angeles County would enjoy $10 million in electricity cost savings over the technology’s 20-year life.
Can you tell me more about the LA County solar carport and how introduction of the Quino flow battery technology will help its development/expansion?
Our project is currently at technology readiness level (TRL) 6. Quino Energy specializes in creating the low-cost electrolyte, addressing the largest cost component of flow batteries. We pair that with flow battery hardware and systems made by vanadium flow battery manufacturers which have been in business for a much longer time and have had hundreds of deployments, some even in California itself. The hardware of the organic flow batteries is already mature, reliable, and proven to be successful.
Quino Energy is now focused on setting up a larger scale production line, building on the success of its pilot production line in Buffalo, NY. We’re also pursuing a pilot demonstration in China, where approvals can move along quickly. We hope to have it up and running at the end of 2026.
What stage is the flow battery development at now and what is left to complete before it comes online?
Yes, Los Angeles County has identified multiple County-owned sites that would benefit from energy resiliency and electricity cost savings. Quino’s non-flammable technology is particularly attractive for installation given the heightened fire risk sensitivity in many areas of Los Angeles County.
There are projects in the pipeline in other states. For example, Quino Energy will be supporting Terraflow Energy with their recently announced one-gigawatt flow battery project in Victoria, Texas for a datacenter application.
Is there anything else you can tell me of interest that I haven’t covered here?
Another notable characteristic of flow batteries that sets them apart from other storage options is their energy density. They can achieve up to three times higher energy density in terms of land area when compared with LFPs. This is made possible by the large tank form factor design, which enables flow batteries to scale vertically within existing tank infrastructure, using volume more effectively than LFPs. A higher energy density provides benefits in consideration to space constraints.
