A Switzerland headquartered company has been chosen to provide a big battery system for a proposed solar farm in Victoria.
Energy Vault is developing long-duration energy storage solutions utilising gravity and kinetic energy through the lifting and lowering of very large “bricks”. The idea is surplus renewable energy is used to power Energy Vault’s electric motor/generator lift/crane system to elevate the bricks into position, which “charges” the battery. When energy is required, the bricks are control-released, generating electricity.
Here’s the Energy Vault Resiliency Center (EVRC) Gravity Energy Storage System (GESS) concept:
While the company has racked up a number of agreements to date, to the best of my knowledge there isn’t an Energy Vault GESS in commercial operation anywhere yet, and the concepts have been met with a degree of skepticism.
But the company also offers short duration energy storage (SDES) solutions, which are designed for projects requiring up to 4 hours of storage capacity using various storage technologies including lithium-ion based batteries.
Energy Vault announced yesterday it had received a Notice of Award from Meadow Creek Solar Pty Ltd for the deployment of a 250MW/500MWh battery energy storage system at the 330MW Meadow Creek Solar Farm near Glenrowan in Victoria.
This solar farm is a bit of a mystery – I couldn’t find any further information on it apart from a couple of mentions of connection enquiries/applications with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) last year. While some of the wording in the announcement from Energy Vault indicates Meadow Creek Solar Farm is operational, the project appears to be still at the feasibility stage.
” The Meadow Creek Solar Farm, Hybrid Solar PV and BESS Developments goals are well met with the market release of Energy Vault’s AC and DC block bespoke energy storage solutions for the Australian market,” said Energy Vault’s Lucas Sadler. ” Importantly, this award builds on the significant progress Energy Vault has made over the past year as we bring our transformative energy storage solutions to this important market.”
Energy Vault And Australia’s Sun Metals
Should the Meadows Creek Solar Farm project proceed, it may not be the first Energy Vault installation in Australia.
Earlier this year, Korea Zinc Co. Ltd announced an investment of $US50 million in Energy Vault. Korea Zinc Co is the parent company of Ark Energy and Sun Metals Corporation. Sun Metals operates Queensland’s biggest zinc refinery and is aiming to be one of the first in the world to produce “green” zinc using renewables. Early last year, sister company Ark Energy was established by Korea Zinc to decarbonise the energy supply of the group; starting out with Sun Metals.
Ark Energy announced in December last year it was to acquire Australian utility-scale wind and solar energy developer Epuron Holdings Pty Ltd. The acquisition was completed in May this year.
According to Energy Vault, Ark Energy is working with the company on the initial planning of “multi-GWh” long and short duration energy storage projects to support Sun Metals. Sun Metals has a target of 100% renewables by 2040 and an interim goal of 80% by 2030. Among its assets is the 124MW (AC) Sun Metals Solar Farm, which incorporates more than 1.3 million solar panels.
About Michael Bloch
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This sounds great sort of like pumped hydro but you can use it anywhere.
When you look at the figures though it doesnt seem plausible.
If the stored energy needs to be say 500MWh thats 1.8 Tj (1,800 gigajoules)….500*3600Mega watt seconds and 1 watt second is 1 joule.
If potential energy is mass*height*g (9.8m/s/s) then assuming a 20m lift you need to be raising around 9 million tons. Even ligting to 100m its still 1,8 million tons and I dont fancy 1.8 million tons on a 100m high tower.
Where am I going wrong?
I don’t think you are missing anything. I’d have to be raised 3km to gain 1 kilowatt-hour of gravitational potential energy. There are two things we can conclude from this:
1. Vast amounts of mass have to be raised a great height to provide significant energy storage.
2. I need to lose weight.
I’m not see any advantage to the “Power Vault” over just using water. Even if there are no natural heights to take advantage of, a water tower should be cheaper and easier to use. And battery storage even better.