Mod Idea - Flow Batteries

[BloodBlight]

So, I looked for a mod that did this and didn't find one.  I have only ever seen a flow battery mod in Space Engineers and it was very broken unfortunately...

Basically a flow battery stores power in two liquids (anolyte and catholyte).  These liquids have a "state of charge", but could be simplified by making four liquid types (anolyte [charged and discharged] and catholyte [charged and discharged]).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

This requires the pumping of the liquids into an exchange membrane.  So they do NOT work without SOME amount of external power.  But WHY would you want this?

- Basically zero leakage.

- Storage is only limited by the amount of anolyte and catholyte that you have.

- "Charged" liquid can be shipped.  A LOT of it.  Like you could send it on a ship to a starter colony.

- Store excess power at the cost of efficiency.

 

Keeping it balanced:

- The exchange membranes should be expensive to produce.

- The exchange membranes do not store or produce much power per second (something like 200W), but produce or store a LOT for the volume of fluid pumped (this would be based on costs, but a single unit should run the membrane for like half a day).

- The anolyte and catholyte should be somewhat inexpensive.

- If you have zero power, you can't run the pumps to extract power, better have a squirrel wheel!

- Power used for pumping cuts your efficiency, say 80%.

 

Notes:

- Charging VS dis-charging could be controlled VIA automation.  Everything else could be done with vanilla components.

- Attempting to charge already charged fluid would just pass through the membrane (same with discharged).

- Resources to build the membrane should ether require multiple stages of refinements and research, and/or traveling to space.

- If it's still OP, you could add a wear factor to the membrane.  Then you would have to factor that in when shipping parts.