Coal mine shaft and winding tower [image credit: Andy Dingley @ Wikipedia]
Like pumped hydro or any gravity-based system it uses more power than it stores. Euan Mearns and Roger Andrews did an interesting analysis on this idea in 2018, comparing it to batteries and hydro. One issue is finding enough suitable disused mine shafts that aren’t flooded. At least heavy weights don’t degrade over time, unlike batteries.
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The pilot project aims to demonstrate the firm’s technology, which works by using excess electricity to lift 12,000 tonnes of weights in a deep shaft and releasing them at a later time to generate energy, says Energy Live News.
The trial aims to assess the response speed of energy generation once the weights are released.
The start-up has signed a land rental agreement with port operator Forth Ports for the demonstration project.
Construction work for the £1 million project is scheduled to commence in October 2020, with December marked for the commercial launch.
Gravitricity Lead Engineer Miles Franklin, said: “This grid-connected demonstrator will use two 25-tonne weights suspended by steel cables. In our first test, we’ll drop the weights together to generate full power and verify our speed of response. We calculate we can go from zero to full power in less than a second – which can be extremely valuable in the frequency response and back-up power markets.
Full article here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
May 17, 2020 at 09:42AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 