China Tianying Group, the principal power network operator in the nation, entered into a contract with State Grid Corp. of China to commission the project.
The world’s first grid-scale gravity energy storage system (GESS), according to an announcement from Energy Vault Holdings, Atlas Renewable, and China Tianying, has begun the initial stages of commissioning. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the EVx system, which is close to a wind farm outside of Shanghai, is anticipated to be fully grid-connected.
Energy storage has been approached in a novel way by Energy Vault. Its solutions are based on the fundamentals of potential energy and gravity. To store and distribute electricity, the EVx platform uses a mechanical process that involves lifting and lowering composite blocks.
The company constructed a structure with hollow towers. To lift the weight, the facility uses extra solar energy in the system, generating potential energy. The blocks are lowered when necessary, and electric motors produce electricity. The technology is not all that dissimilar from hydropower with pumped storage.
China Tianying Group, the principal power network operator in the nation, entered into a contract with State Grid Corp. of China to commission the project. According to Energy Vault, the new system is the first in the world to be able to balance the grid using gravity.
The China Tianying Group can obtain low-cost materials like coal ash and mining tailings through a waste management subsidiary. Energy Vault, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, claims blocks can be made from construction site dirt or decommissioned wind turbine blades, using recycled materials.
The charging and discharging cycles are coordinated by computer systems and machine vision software, which control the tower. The new kind of battery storage has a capacity of 100 MWh and can run for up to four hours at 25 MW of full power.
The business anticipates increasing the effectiveness of its EVx system to over 80%.
Energy Vault engineers asserted that their upcoming projects will enable them to produce energy for 12 hours and on a gigawatt-hour scale. Additionally, the company anticipates efficiency to surpass 80%. It indicates that it would be able to recover 4/5 of the electricity it uses.
In that scenario, the company’s technology would be able to compete with other long-duration energy storage options: Hydropower plants with pumped storage, compressed air and flow batteries.
The test project, which was put in place in Switzerland in 2020, had a 75% efficiency rate.
The EVx system in Rudong, Jiangsu province, close to Shanghai, is anticipated to be fully connected to the grid in the fourth quarter, according to the investors. A wind farm and a transmission power line are nearby the location.
The Lugano, Switzerland-based Energy Vault announced in September that it would install five additional EVx gravity energy storage systems with a combined capacity of 2 GWh in China. The company’s shareholder Atlas Renewable, the Chinese nongovernmental organisation EIPC, and China Tianying, whose primary business is telecommunications, are its partners.