Storage

Chilean utility Colbún has unveiled plans for a massive pumped storage hydropower project in northern Chile. The facility will use desalinated water from the Pacific Ocean to store energy and use it when it’s most needed.

The partnership will see architecture and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), responsible for some of the world’s tallest buildings, incorporate Energy Vault’s gravity energy storage technology into tall buildings in urban environments and deployable structures in natural environments.

The German research institute said the new heat pump was developed in partnership with ZAE Bayern and Mafac E. Schwarz. The system uses propane (R290) as the refrigerant and is suitable for industrial processes with a temperature range of 50 C to 70 C.

US-based start-up SorbiForce uses no toxic products or metals in production of its batteries. It claims its systems are cheaper and safer than lithium-ion batteries and have near zero end-of-life waste.

Researchers in South Korea have successfully demonstrated the use of free ambient air as a fuel leveraging a sodium-based solid electrolyte to tackle the carbonate issue that has been holding back the rollout of metal-air batteries. Their sodium-air battery cell has demonstrated high efficiency, incresed energy density, and a broad voltage range.

Quidnet Energy, a provider of geomechanical energy storage (GES) technology, has joined hands with distributed energy resources developer Hunt Energy Network to deliver 300 MW of storage projects in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid operating region.

Natural hydrogen explorer Gold Hydrogen says it has uncovered 95.8% pure hydrogen at its Ramsay Project on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula as it seeks to tap into growing demand for the gas as a clean energy source.

The draft parameters for this year’s capacity market auction in Poland could make the rollout of battery energy storage systems (BESS) much more difficult. The document proposes a significant reduction to the BESS derating factor that could be particularly harmful for longer duration storage systems.

While most long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies are still early-stage and costly compared to lithium-ion batteries, some have already or are set to achieve lower costs for longer durations, finds BloombergNEF.

Evolution Mining is moving forward on a AUD 7 billion ($4.64 billion) plan to build a 2 GW/20 GWh pumped hydro electricity generation facility in the pit of a 20-year-old gold mine in Australia.