Ivanhoe Electric wants to be a global leader in vanadium batteries. And they’re launching a new joint venture to do it.
What’s happening:
- Ivanhoe Electric (NYSE: IE) has entered into a joint venture agreement with Asian energy company Red Sun to accelerate grid scale vanadium battery manufacturing and production
Why it matters:
- Through their subsidiary VRB Energy, Ivanhoe Electric previously made historic progress by commercializing the world’s largest vanadium flow battery cell stack and power module
- Vanadium batteries have a lot of promise for powering clean energy infrastructure, largely due to their longer lifespan and their ability to respond quickly to changing loads as well as their overload capacities
By the numbers:
- Red Sun will invest $55M USD directly into Ivanhoe Electric’s subsidiary VRB Energy
- Red Sun will own 51% of the new entity being established through the joint venture, with Ivanhoe Electric owning 49%
Going deeper:
- Ivanhoe Electric and Red Sun are planning to focus exclusively on selling vanadium flow batteries within Asia, the Middle East and Africa
- While Ivanhoe Electric will continue to ramp up their manufacturing of vanadium flow batteries for domestic purposes in Arizona, Red Sun will establish two new manufacturing facilities in China as part of the new joint venture
The intrigue:
- Ivanhoe Electric has been making a flurry of moves focused on the energy transition recently, including securing full ownership of one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in the United States and forming a partnership with BHP (NYSE: BHP) to make new discoveries of critical minerals
