Last week we held our eleventh in-person IFBF conference. We received some lovely feedback from delegates; we thank everyone that took part and helped make the event such a great success.

We held the conference jointly with Flow Batteries Europe and together we debated the Batteries Passport, Innovation funding in Horizon Europe, and the European Innovation Fund. Being in Brussels gave us the opportunity to be closer to the European Commission, useful for our session on the security of energy supply in Europe, led by Karlis Goldstein, Policy Assistant to the Energy Commissioner. Overall, our speakers covered a wide range of topics from funding and venture capital investment, life cycle analysis, performance and comparison of different flow battery types, to manufacturing processes and the role of standards. We heard about flow battery projects in Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Europe, Australia and the USA.

Feedback suggests that delegates found the opportunities for networking the most beneficial aspect of the conference and it was pleasing to see everyone networking, visiting the exhibition stands and taking part in the poster session.

The posters this year were all of a very high standard and we were pleased to present the following awards:

• Joseph Mengou, Epoupa of Eni SpA – Best one minute introduction
• Kirk Smith, University of Oxford – Best one minute introduction
• Sara Noreiga Oreiro, Aarhus University – Best discussion of a poster paper
• René Garcia Rosas, Fraunhofer ISE – Best poster
• Fillippo Fenini, Aarhus University – Best poster

On the final day, in brilliant sunshine, we visited Sumitomo’s flow battery at John Cockerill’s Micro-Integrated Network of Seraing (MiRIS). Petr Simik, R&D and Operations Manager at MiRIS, explained the essential role of energy storage in the microgrid and how the flow battery was integrated into the system. It was a magnificent conclusion to a very successful conference.

Conference material

Delegates can still access the conference material – including presentation slides, video recordings and an ebook of Conference Papers – via the IFBF’s dedicated networking platform. If you did not attend the conference and would like access to this material, please contact us.

Photos of the conference are on Flickr.

IFBF 2023

We are now making plans for the next conference which we expect to be held in the last week of June 2023. We are looking at a possible venue and hope to announce this in the autumn.