PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Unlisted critical minerals developer Vecco Group on Thursday officially opened its A$26-million Townsville vanadium battery manufacturing facility, in Queensland.

Vecco Group’s new facility will produce the electrolyte used in grid-scale vanadium flow batteries and will support the development of Vecco’s Debella critical minerals mine.

The Townsville vanadium battery manufacturing facility will employ 21 people and produce nine megalitres of electrolyte annually, equating to an energy storage capacity of 175 MWh annually with plans to expand to 350 MWh.

The Debella vanadium and high purity alumina project (HPA), in turn, is expected to start production in 2024 and will produce 5 500 t/y of vanadium pentoxide and 2 000 t HPA yearly over a mine life of more than 50 years.

On Thursday, the Queensland government announced a deal with Vecco and Sumitomo Electric to trial a vanadium battery in south-east Queensland, with Energy Queensland to use vanadium batteries in the Queensland SuperGrid.

Energy Queensland and Vecco Group will also work together to assess the benefits and technical considerations for connecting more vanadium batteries to the electricity network.

“I want to see vanadium mined in Queensland, processed in Queensland, and made into vanadium batteries here in Queensland,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“This is just the beginning of the manufacturing and mining jobs boom that our investment in CopperString 2032 delivers for North Queensland. Queensland has unique deposits of many of the minerals needed for the global energy transformation, along with the best mining and manufacturing workforce.”

Vecco Group MD Tom Northcott said on Thursday that the company’s high-quality vanadium resource in north-west Queensland provided an opportunity to build a Queensland vanadium mining and battery manufacturing industry.

“Vanadium flow batteries will play a significant role in the Queensland SuperGrid and we expect to see deployments of this proven technology accelerate as the local supply chain expands.

“The Queensland government has shown great foresight in its commitment to supporting the vanadium industry and it is fantastic to see this supply chain plan being implemented through the government-owned corporations such as Energy Queensland.”