UK firm Granted ₤ 912,000 to utilize Gravity to Store Energy at Brownfield site

• The UK government's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has granted around ₤ 912,000 in funding to London-based Gravitricity, whose trademarked technology utilizes gravity to save energy, to make it possible for the firm to set up an energy storage space project in Northern England.

The 'GraviSTORE' project is just one of the 5 successful projects selected under the Longer Duration Energy Storage Demonstration Programme, Stream 1 Phase 1, by the UK government.

Stream 1 intends to accelerate the commercialisation of innovative longer duration energy storage projects via actual demonstrations. During Phase 1, projects will be anticipated to mobilise their recommended modern technologies to plan for potential implementation on the UK energy system, said BEIS.

The department has informed that Gravitricity Limited will get ₤ 912,410.84 to develop their multiweight energy store demonstrator project, which will save and also release energy by lifting as well as lowering numerous weights in an upright below ground shaft.

The principle behind the energy storage system was developed by company owner and also Technical Director Peter Fraenkel MBE, a legal mechanical designer presently functioning as a going to teacher at the University of Edinburgh. After protecting early give funding around 2012 to further develop its innovation, the company obtained ₤ 650,000 from Innovate UK some 4-5 years later on to design and also develop their idea demonstrator.

Functioning carefully with Dutch winch and also offshore producer Huisman Equipment throughout 2021, Gravitricity created, commissioned, and ran a 250kW, grid-connected demonstration project making use of a 15 metre high rig at the Port of Leith, Edinburgh, last year.

The Gravitricity system makes use of weight configurations amounting to 12,000 tonnes in a deep shaft, suspended by a number of cables, each of which is involved with an electric winch with the ability of raising its share of the weight. Electricity is kept in the form of prospective energy by raising the weights.

Power is then generated by decreasing the weights to turn a generator. "The innovation has been shown to reach full power in less than one 2nd and has actually a forecasted complete scale performance of between 80% as well as 90%," claims the firm.

The firm is now creating a commercial consortium to take its innovation to market, as well as plans to start the development of its initial full-scale project at a mine site in mainland Europe this year.

Lately, Gravitricity has been checking out chances for purpose-built model shafts at brownfield areas in the UK, where gravity storage will be incorporated with hydrogen as well as inter-seasonal warmth storage. For this function, the company has actually now won the ₤ 912,000 give from BEIS.

According to Gravitricity, its technology has the following unique attributes:

• 50-year design life with no cycle limit or degradation
• Response time: zero to full power in less than one second
• Effectiveness: in between 80 and also 90 percent
• Versatile: can run slowly at low power or fast at high power
• Easy to build near networks
• Cost effective: levelised prices well below lithium batteries