Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Idealab's Energy Vault Launches Energy Storage Technology

Energy Vault, a startup created by Pasadena-based startup incubator Idealab, announced this morning that it has launched its utility-scale energy storage technology into commercial availability. Energy Vault's technology--which looks like a wild idea created in Minecraft--uses immense concrete blocks, which store energy from renewable energy, using the same principles of pumping and storing water for energy storage. According to Energy Vault, it already has signed a deal with the Tata Power Company to deploy a 35 MWh system in 2019. Energy Vault's system uses a massive, six-armed crane system that the company says taps into the physics of potential and kinetic energy, to position massive concrete bricks which are used to capture energy. The company claims that its energy storage technology will make baseload power cheaper than fossil fuels. In addition to the deal with Tata power Company, Energy Vault said it also has linked up with CEMEX Resarch Group AG, the Swiss subsidiary of Mexican cement company CEMEX, to focus on the optimization of concrete-based composite materials for its systems. (Image: Illustration of Energy Vault's charged, partially charged, and fully discharged energy storage system, which stacks and unstacks giant cement blocks for energy storage.)