Bushveld Belco is a vanadium electrolyte production facility, located in East London, South Africa. The company is jointly owned by Bushveld Energy (55%) and the IDC (45%).
This electrolyte plant is the largest publicly announced electrolyte plant outside of China. The plant is designed to take vanadium oxide from Bushveld’s Vanchem operation as the preferred feedstock provider. Oxide from Bushveld Vametco or non-Bushveld suppliers may also be used.
Bushveld Belco will deliver electrolyte to Bushveld Energy for the manufacturing of vanadium redox flow batteries.
Its targeted initial capacity is 8 million litres of vanadium electrolyte per year. Each litre of vanadium electrolyte will contain 82 g - 92g of vanadium, with the plant using over 1 100 tonnes of vanadium oxide equivalent at full production. It is able to scale up to 32 million litres at the same location.