Renewable energy is now widely available and increasingly affordable, helping mitigate the climate crisis. However, due to the intermittency of certai

Energy Vault Gravity Batteries Can Store Renewable Energy and Cut Waste

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2021-07-27 15:30:08

Renewable energy is now widely available and increasingly affordable, helping mitigate the climate crisis. However, due to the intermittency of certain sources that rely on factors such as wind or sunlight, renewable energy hasn’t reached its full potential, stopping it from completely replacing fossil fuels. Energy Vault, a Swiss startup, might have found a solution to this problem. They have developed a technology that uses kinetic energy and gravity to store renewable energy, whilst cutting waste, by storing it in a tower of bricks.

Founded in 2017 by Bill Gross, Andrea Pedretti and Robert Piconi, Energy Vault has gradually been picking up steam. It hit the headlines in 2019 when it closed a Series B funding round, receiving a $110 Million Investment from Soft Bank. The company has since constructed a Commercial Demonstration Unit in Switzerland, a grid-scale gravity energy storage system connected to the Swiss national utility grid.

Energy Vault’s technology is inspired by pumped hydro plants that rely on gravity and the movement of water to generate power. Pumped hydro consist of using excess energy to pump water from a lower elevation to a higher elevation. Then, during periods of high electrical demand, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power.