"The energy storage industry is all about incremental improvements, so its rare to see a product come to market that does something radically different.
That happened last week when the stealthy Swiss/Southern Californian startup Energy Vault went public with an unusually creative grid storage concept. It devised a six-armed crane that stacks concrete blocks with cheap and abundant grid power, and drops them down to retrieve electricity when needed.
The company pitches this as a durable, trustworthy solution for the thorny problem of storing electricity for long periods of time.
The lithium-ion batteries that account for almost all of new grid storage deployments make economic sense for 4-hour duration, even 6-hour, but they get too expensive for super-long durations. Meanwhile, longer-term storage is getting more valuable as cheap but intermittent wind and solar power continue their rise on the grid......"
Is this possibleto do on a small scale ? what sort of mass would be needed to get some reasonable storage ??
mgh ........... 1 tonne raised 10 meters ........... stores ,1000 x 10 x 9.8 = 100 KJ
One 18650 stores 10 W Hrs = 36 KJ
Might just be a sensibleidea if your land already had a mine shaft , or deep well .
That happened last week when the stealthy Swiss/Southern Californian startup Energy Vault went public with an unusually creative grid storage concept. It devised a six-armed crane that stacks concrete blocks with cheap and abundant grid power, and drops them down to retrieve electricity when needed.
The company pitches this as a durable, trustworthy solution for the thorny problem of storing electricity for long periods of time.
The lithium-ion batteries that account for almost all of new grid storage deployments make economic sense for 4-hour duration, even 6-hour, but they get too expensive for super-long durations. Meanwhile, longer-term storage is getting more valuable as cheap but intermittent wind and solar power continue their rise on the grid......"
Is this possibleto do on a small scale ? what sort of mass would be needed to get some reasonable storage ??
mgh ........... 1 tonne raised 10 meters ........... stores ,1000 x 10 x 9.8 = 100 KJ
One 18650 stores 10 W Hrs = 36 KJ
Might just be a sensibleidea if your land already had a mine shaft , or deep well .