As electricity grids around the world transition to using renewable energy resources, investment will need to be made in energy storage. When the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow there needs to be a way for the grid to be supplied with electricity.

Currently pumped hydro storage is the main form of energy storage, although that requires specific geographical layout. Another form of storage getting significant investment is battery storage, batteries are becoming more efficient but still can store significantly less power than other storage forms and degrade over time.

Another potential storage solution is gravity storage. One company pursuing this idea is Energy Vault, whose CEO Robert Piconi believes that their idea of lifting 35-tonne blocks to store energy before dropping it back down to convert it back to electricity could be a form of energy storage that has high storage capacity and strong efficiency.

Guests

Robert Piconi, CEO of Energy Vault

Resources 

For more information on Energy Vault, click here

For more information on the 2022 Energy Storage Outlook Report, click here

The post #182 Using Gravity to Store Energy first appeared on Engineering Matters.