New Energy Storage Concept

Here’s a concept that’s one more variation on the theme of doing work against gravity to store potential energy from intermittent sources, to be delivered as needed.  It employs automated cranes that pick up bricks and move them sideways, as well as up and down.  Interesting; it’s worth looking at the video linked above.

The main challenge I see here is the number of moving parts; I would think a better concept would employ one big cylinder in an underground case that is raised and lowered.  In fact, I saw a drawing for this idea at the energy storage show in San Diego about nine years ago.   The guy wanted to raise $1 billion to build a huge facility.  I said that the idea has merit, but when I suggested a much smaller working model, he told me to take a hike.  Note: almost a decade later there are no such facilities, large or small.

This is very similar to:

ARES (Advanced Rail Energy Storage), whose challenge is that it must be sited in an area with a natural elevation change, and a substantial one at that.

and

An offshore wind concept in which each turbine has a ring-shaped mass around its tower that raises and lowers.  Like the concept in the video, too much “stuff”; workable energy storage, at least for grid-scale deployment, must be at least somewhat centralized.

The problem with all electromechanical storage solutions, is that they rely on the discoveries of Faraday (ca. 1830) and Newton (ca. 1660), and there is very little room for improvement. Batteries, by contrast, are getting better and cheaper each year.  If there is a window for concepts like these, it’s closing…fast.