“This is certainly the most exciting thing I’ve worked on,” Aziz says, “because the implications are so global. The greatest challenge facing humanity this century —I’m convinced — is finding the energy to power a civilization of 10 billion people without unacceptable consequences to the environment. Renewable energy is front and center in that challenge, and this could really be a very significant enabler of renewable energy.”
While the cost of renewable energy sources (e.g. solar, wind, tidal) have been dropping, in some cases quite markedly (e.g. solar), one of the key issues has been the variability and/or unpredictability of it. That, of course, has required near instantaneous sources of power generated via other means which must be online or near-online (e.g. natural gas turbines).
Flow batteries, OTOH, could store renewable energy in tanks limited only by the size and number of such tank farms. Further, the energy stored in the tanks could be measured and metered in a predictable fashion, allowing better prediction and significant extension of the 'window' to bring traditional sources of power online.
Still perhaps a few years from commercial availability, but nonetheless a promising technology.
A breakthrough may make the mega flow battery commercially viable in the near future | Public Radio International