ESN Premium speaks with Travis Torrey, CTO of Storion Energy on tariffs, vanadium supply chains and costs.
Storion is a joint venture (JV) between primary vanadium producer Largo Clean Energy and multi-technology energy storage solutions company Stryten Energy, officially established in February.
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Storion CTO Torrey spoke at the 2025 Energy Storage Summit USA event, hosted in Dallas, Texas, last month by our publisher Solar Media.
Torrey’s presentation at ESS USA centered around vanadium electrolyte leasing as a way to help achieve the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) long-duration energy storage (LDES) levelised cost of storage (LCOS) goal of to US$0.05/kWh.
A report from the DOE Office of Electricity established the LCOS goal and detailed the investments and time required to achieve it in 2023.
The OE’s report did find that flow batteries could be a suitable technology for achieving the LCOS goal by the end of the decade.
Storion combines Largo’s access to Maracás Menchen Mine in Bahia, Brazil, the only vanadium mine in the western hemisphere, with Stryten’s battery storage solutions.
Largo’s strategy on entering the VRFB energy storage market was profiled along with the strategy of another primary vanadium producer, Bushveld Minerals, for an article in our quarterly journal PV Tech Power (Vol.28), back in 2021.
Both companies established energy storage subsidiaries to capitalise on the opportunity of supplying vanadium to the long-duration storage space, in addition to serving customers in other industries. By that time, Largo had already introduced its leasing model.
The company’s formation followed shortly after Stryten received a Phase 2 funding through the US DOE’s ‘MAKE IT’ prize facilities track to build a domestic vanadium electrolyte manufacturing plant last year.
The cost of vanadium
At first glance, vanadium may seem like an unlikely contender for creating more cost-effective energy storage solutions.
According to a 2024 deep dive on the costs of different LDES technologies, including flow batteries, from BloombergNEF, flow batteries had an average fully installed cost of US$444/kWh.
If you exclude China from that figure, it goes up to US$701/kWh.
A 4-hour duration lithium-ion (Li-ion) BESS, by comparison, had an average cost of US$304/kWh.
Vanadium is an expensive resource, and VRFB developers are looking at increasing costs. Primary vanadium mining accounts for only about 20% of global production, with the majority of vanadium created as a by-product of steel production in China, the largest supplier of vanadium in the world.
Meanwhile, most demand for the metal comes from its use in reinforcing steel. It is also used in other applications, including strengthening aircraft hulls, chemical production, and various other industries.
In China, vanadium is still used for the country’s projects as well as in its construction industry, and an escalating trade war with the US will make importing the resource even more expensive.
Torrey says of reducing VRFB costs:
“Our first approach has been to create a domestic supply chain. That lets us be local in a way that many companies aren’t.”
“One of the challenges in energy storage is actually getting batteries to various sites. By building a supply chain here in the US, we’re cutting a lot of the logistics costs involved in getting batteries up and running.”
Torrey elaborates that the two companies coming together to form Storion are well-positioned to move batteries and improve battery chemistry from the lab to production.
Rather than position itself as a direct competitor against all Li-ion technologies, the company focuses on LDES applications.
“I wouldn’t want a cell phone with a vanadium battery—it just wouldn’t work. Same goes for lead-acid batteries—they’ve been starting our cars for a hundred years and still do a great job. Each battery tech has its place.”
Torrey continues, “vanadium redox flow batteries make the most sense in newer application spaces, like long-duration energy storage at utility-scale — something like six hours or more. That’s where they become cost-competitive. They wouldn’t make sense in a home system, for example, because they wouldn’t be cost-effective there.”
Another factor in Storion’s cost-effectiveness is its vanadium leasing model. ‘Largo Physical Vanadium’ (LPV) is a model where investors can invest in vanadium assets, stored in a VRFB, in the form of leased vanadium electrolyte.
LPV trades vanadium as VAND on the Toronto stock exchange and has a current share price of approximately CAD$0.63 (US$0.45).
Tariffs and Manufacturing
As previously mentioned, China is the largest supplier of vanadium in the world.
Now, there is a 145% tariff on imports from China. Reuters recently reported that this number could come down to between 50% and 65%, but this is still a huge cost for developers to consider.
When using a resource like vanadium, supply chains become increasingly critical, and cost can quickly rise.
Storion, with access to Largo’s vanadium mine in Brazil, is uniquely positioned for access to vanadium in a way that other VRFB developers in the US are not.
Torrey says of the situation, “Honestly, even without the tariffs, our strategy was always to build a domestic supply chain. That’s been our approach from the start.”
“What’s important to us is creating a stable business that can operate in a variety of environments. That way we can consistently deliver to our customers.”
He continues, “We don’t really control tariffs outside of how we vote, right? So our job is to build a competitive product. Internally, we’re always working to strengthen our supply chain. Fortunately, almost all of our components are currently made in the US, so we feel confident about our position.”
A US supply chain for Storion’s components may prove to be critical in the coming years.
In addition to tariffs, the Trump-Vance administration has focused on increasing oil and fossil fuel production while attempting to do away with Biden-era clean energy policies.
LDES is an important technology for meeting our energy demands, especially with a growing number of data centres, and a likelihood of more electricity-consuming resources being brought online across the country.
Torrey notes of the DOE’s increased focus on fossil fuels, “We actually see an opportunity to collaborate with oil and gas companies. They have distributed, often remote, assets—like pump sites—that consume a lot of power. They also operate large energy consumers like refineries.”
“Oil and gas companies could benefit from utility-scale infrastructure and long-duration energy storage to optimise operations.”
He continues, “..it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. Producing oil efficiently doesn’t solve the grid problem, which is a separate challenge entirely. The grid is facing rapid shifts and growing energy usage. There’s enough work to go around. It’s a big change for all of us, but also a big opportunity.”
