IN Brief:
- Invinity Energy Systems has been selected to design a GWh-scale vanadium flow battery for FlexBase’s Technology Centre Laufenburg.
- The Swiss project is planned with up to 1.5GWh of initial storage capacity and potential expansion to 2.1GWh.
- Long-duration storage is moving closer to high-load infrastructure as AI datacentres, renewables, and grid stability requirements converge.
Invinity Energy Systems has been selected by FlexBase Group to design a GWh-scale vanadium flow battery for deployment at the Technology Centre Laufenburg in Switzerland.
The project is located in the Swiss municipality of Laufenburg on the Switzerland-Germany border. It will include an AI datacentre and technology campus integrated with a vanadium flow battery system of up to 1.5GWh capacity, with a later expansion route to 2.1GWh.
Invinity will now move into an engineering phase expected to run during 2026 and into 2027. That stage is intended to generate engineering revenue subject to development milestones. A purchase order for the battery system is expected to follow if the design phase is completed successfully, enabling phased manufacturing of datacentre-optimised vanadium flow battery modules.
The Laufenburg project broke ground in May 2025 and is currently under construction. The battery system is planned to support renewable energy integration at the site and provide stabilisation services to the grid. Invinity has described the installation as expected to become the world’s largest vanadium flow battery project to date.
Vanadium flow batteries store energy in liquid electrolyte held in tanks, with power and energy capacity scaled differently from conventional cell-based battery systems. Their characteristics suit applications where repeated cycling, long service life, durability, and safety form a central part of the asset case.
The connection with AI datacentre infrastructure gives the project a sharper role in European energy planning. High-density computing campuses require large connection capacity, resilient electricity supply, cooling, power quality, and flexible operating arrangements. Storage can help manage those requirements by buffering load, absorbing renewable generation, supporting grid services, and reducing dependence on short-duration balancing alone.
Invinity’s deployment at an East Sussex vanadium flow battery hub has already shown the company’s technology moving beyond small demonstration scale. The Laufenburg contract places the same technology direction into a larger and more complex setting, where storage is integrated with a high-load datacentre and a technology campus rather than operating as a standalone grid asset.
The project also reflects a changing storage procurement landscape. Lithium-ion remains dominant across many grid-scale applications because of its manufacturing scale, response speed, modularity, and cost trajectory. Long-duration technologies, including flow batteries, are being positioned for use cases where cycle life, duration, thermal behaviour, operational safety, and predictable degradation carry more weight over the full asset life.
Datacentres sharpen the technical comparison between storage options. A large AI campus is a continuous and sensitive load, with commercial exposure tied to uptime, cooling performance, power resilience, and operational continuity. Storage systems serving these sites need to be assessed against lifecycle cost, availability, safety systems, controls integration, maintainability, and grid-service capability rather than headline energy capacity alone.
The engineering phase will need to resolve several practical questions. Tank sizing, electrolyte management, power conversion, controls, grid interface design, safety systems, civil layout, thermal behaviour, and module manufacturing must all be coordinated with the datacentre’s power architecture and construction programme.
European grids are facing simultaneous pressure from renewable deployment, industrial electrification, datacentre growth, and connection constraints. Storage can ease some of that pressure, but the right design depends on the operating role expected of the asset. A system built primarily for short-duration price arbitrage has different requirements from one intended to support high-load resilience, local grid stability, and frequent cycling.
Invinity’s selection gives the Laufenburg development a defined storage technology route for the next engineering stage. The project’s next test will be the transition from design to manufacturing, installation, commissioning, and long-term operation. If delivered at the planned scale, it will place vanadium flow technology closer to the centre of Europe’s discussion about how large flexible loads, renewable generation, and long-duration storage can be engineered as one integrated power system.