Founded in 2008, California-based storage startup EnerVault has remained relatively quiet on its progress.

The flow battery market is, after all, defined more by grandiose claims from companies than by commercial projects in the ground.

But with $24.5 million in funding and an executive team hailing from SunPower, Tesla, and a range of battery, power plant engineering and fuel cell companies, EnerVault is now going public with its performance expectations.

\”We\’ve been particularly quiet about achievements,\” said Jim Pape, EnerVault\’s CEO and former president of residential and commercial solar at SunPower. \”Part of that is our investors; part of that is that we don\’t want to put out statements we have to later jump over.\”

Here\’s a bold statement that EnerVault is now ready to make: The capital cost of its first commercial project, a 1-megawatt-hour system completing construction this week, will get the company close to beating DOE\’s cost targets (PDF) for commercial-scale redox flow batteries.

That \”magic number\” for capital cost is $250 per kilowatt-hour and a levelized cost of energy at $0.20 per kilowatt-hour. Jim Pape and EnerVault Chief Strategy Officer Craig Horne didn\’t provide specific data, but said the capital costs for current bids would be \”well below\” DOE\’s targets and their systems will \”compete on an LCOE basis\” with peaking natural gas plants in California.

via EnerVault Nears Completion of Its First Commercial-Scale Flow Battery : Greentech Media.