Maldives explores potential of flow batteries on two islands

Dhidhdhoo is the capital of the Haa Alif atoll in the Maldives and one of two islands designated for flow battery microgrids.

The Maldives government is looking to invest in flow battery-based energy storage systems on two of the country’s 1,192 islands.

The Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Technology (MECCT) of the Republic of Maldives said earlier this week (November 13) that a one-hour market hearing will be held next Monday (November 20).

The meeting will discuss the deployment of a flow battery system totaling approximately 6MWh, along with an energy management system (EMS), on two outer islands in the South Asian archipelago. The scope of the project will be to design, supply and install the system.

The online meeting was held to gather information and feedback from interested parties, and the relevant departments said in a statement that it "does not constitute a formal procurement process" at this stage.

The flow batteries will be deployed as part of the Accelerating Sustainable Systems Development Using Renewable Energy in the Maldives (ASSURE) project, with the largest share of funding, $41.5 million, being provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

While flow battery procurement is reportedly being done on a pilot or demonstration project basis, procurement of around 40MWh of lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity and EMS was launched in August through the project for deployment on 18 islands.

In September, ADB approved a total of $50.5 million in financing for the ASSURE package, including a $8.5 million concessional loan from ordinary capital resources and $500,000 from the Climate Change Fund. ADB said the installation of grid-scale energy storage will help attract private sector investment and enable local deployment of rooftop, ground-mounted and floating solar PV.

Meanwhile, the Japanese government, which provided a $6.2 million grant to ASSURE through the ADB’s internal Japan Joint Credit Mechanism (JFJCM) Trust Fund, said it would directly fund flow battery systems as part of microgrids on the islands of Dhidhoo and Nilandhu. In addition, JFJCM funds will also be used for marine-based renewable energy (possibly tidal) installations.

The ADB noted in official project documents that the Maldives is an extremely climate-vulnerable country with more than 80% of its land area less than 1 meter above average sea level. Due to its large number of islands, the country cannot have a centralized power grid and relies on about 320MW of diesel generators on 186 inhabited islands, and currently about 37MW of solar photovoltaic power generation.

This means that its fuel and electricity costs are high, between $0.30 and $0.70 per KWh, and both fuel and power generation costs require government subsidies. In 2021, about 1% of the Maldives' gross domestic product (GDP) went to these subsidies, while the cost of diesel itself was equivalent to 7.8% of the country's GDP.

(Source: Energy Storage News Global Flow Battery Network, Global Energy Storage Network, New Energy Network Comprehensive)