The idea of the gravity battery is not new, pumped storage power plants use exactly this principle to store electrical power in the potential energy of an elevated reservoir. Nature does not provide the prerequisites for such power plants everywhere, but a start-up wants to be able to implement the idea of storing electricity in gravity potential anywhere in the world. In China and Texas, construction of the largest plants of this type to date has now begun.
120 meters high: gravity battery in China soon ready
How cnet writes in its report, Swiss start-up Energy Vault has begun testing the feasibility of its gravity storage technology for the first time at operational scale in Rudong, China and in Snyder, Texas. After its completion in June, the plant in China should have an energy potential of 100 megawatt hours. For this purpose, a 120 meter high and wide building is being built in which hundreds of blocks weighing 24 tons can be moved up and down automatically using solar and wind energy.
Big ambitions
Last year, China decided on further ambitious projects with the company, with which a total of 2 gigawatt hours of gravity storage should be built in the country. The building in Texas is slightly taller but much narrower and has 36 MWh. As Cnet analyses, the upcoming projects must now show whether the idea of gravity storage, which the company is banking on, is economical and efficient enough to work on a large scale.
- Storing electricity in gravity: Start-up wants to implement ideas everywhere
- Largest operational scale tests: China and Texas
- China: 120 m wide building with 100 MWh, 24 ton blocks
- 2 gigawatt hours of gravity storage planned in China
- Profitability and efficiency must now prove themselves
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