Swiss concrete energy storage

Could a new energy storage system use concrete blocks?

Swiss startup Energy Vault has a different idea. According to Quartz, it plans to construct energy storage systems that use concrete blocks. A 400′ tall crane with 6 arms uses excess electricity to power electric motors that lift and stack concrete cylinders weighing 35 metric tons each all around it.

Can you store green energy in giant concrete blocks?

Finding green energy when the winds are calm and the skies are cloudy has been a challenge. Storing it in giant concrete blocks could be the answer. The Commercial Demonstration Unit lifts blocks weighing 35 tons each. Photograph: Giovanni Frondoni In a Swiss valley, an unusual multi-armed crane lifts two 35-ton concrete blocks high into the air.

Where is a battery made out of concrete?

A couple of hours south of Zürich, Switzerland, in the Canton of Ticino, you’ll find a battery made out of concrete blocks. Energy Vault, the Swiss clean energy firm that built it, is about to go public via a SPAC merger with Novus Capital Corporation II. The sun doesn’t always shine, nor does the wind always blow.

How efficient is a concrete stacking system?

The round-trip efficiency of the system, from stacking to unstacking, is about 85% — roughly on par with lithium-ion batteries, which offer up to 90%. Stacking concrete blocks. Photo: Energy Vault The idea seems quite simple once you see it.

How does energy storage work?

Energy storage offers one way out of this bind. By converting electrical energy into a different form of energy—chemical energy in a lithium-ion battery, or gravitational potential energy in one of Energy Vault’s hanging bricks—you can hold onto that energy and deploy it exactly when you need it.

Will lithium-ion be the future of energy storage?

Schmidt thinks that lithium-ion will satisfy most of the world’s need for new storage until national power grids hit 80 percent renewables, and then the need for longer-term storage will be met by a host of competing technologies, including flow batteries, compressed air, thermal storage and gravity storage.