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Performance evaluation of a 400 kW vanadium redox flow battery system incorporating high-voltage direct-current series connected stacks: Experimental and modeling insights

Lookup NU author(s): Ron Koh, Dr Anurag SharmaORCiD, Dr Khalid AbidiORCiD, Dr Jun Jie ChongORCiD

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Abstract

© 2026 Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) are designed for grid-scale energy storage due to their decoupled power-energy configuration, long service life, and inherently safe aqueous electrolyte system. In this study, a 400 kW/1600 kWh VRFB comprising 558 series-connected cells is evaluated. The highly serialized configuration provides a direct stack output of approximately 850 V. However, most publicly available studies have not analyzed highly series-connected systems with multiple shared electrolyte pathways, which can induce large shunt currents that reduce coulombic efficiency. In this work, a highly series-connected system is analyzed with and without shunt-current inhibitors to analyze their effectiveness in reducing shunt currents in highly series-connected VRFB systems.Simulation results, validated using operational data from the 400 kW system, show that the inhibitors reduce the shunt-current magnitude (A⋅[jls-end-space/]cell−1) by approximately 80% and decrease the charging shunt current to cell current ratio from 2% to 0.5%. Analysis of loss distribution indicates that cell-manifold pathways contribute roughly 63% of total shunt-current losses, identifying the cell-manifold region as the primary target for further inhibitor optimization. Our findings provide design guidance for improving efficiency and scalability in high-voltage VRFB architectures.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Koh R, Bhattarai A, Kumar A, Ghimire PC, Ranjan R, Sahu A, Yong W, Sharma A, Abidi K, Chong J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Power Sources

Year: 2026

Volume: 670

Print publication date: 01/04/2026

Online publication date: 11/02/2026

Acceptance date: 20/01/2026

ISSN (print): 0378-7753

ISSN (electronic): 1873-2755

Publisher: Elsevier B.V.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2026.239402

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2026.239402

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