Energy Vault. A new an d exciting way to store energy.

https://energyvault.ch/

“Our breakthrough technology was inspired by pumped hydro plants that rely on gravity and the movement of water to generate power.

The Energy Vault solution utilises the same fundamentals of physics and kinetic energy as pumped hydro but replaces the water with custom made cylindrical blocks utilising an extremely innovative use of low-cost materials.”

no

Ahhh, damn, and it looked so good in the video.

Consider the cost of a billion litres of water in a damn (nothing, really) and the cost of an appropriate pump.

Now consider the cost of a million tonnes of any manufactured solid item and the cost of a pulley system to elevate it.

Is this for city-wide use though or residential applications? (Note I haven’t read the link.) Also dams are massively environmentally destructive and can’t be plonked just anywhere.

Oh, all those cables look like they would need maintenance. Why not use one big block? Or a water tower with pumped hydro? Water is cheap.

Also if the tower and the surrounding wall are the same height, does that mean the system has no enwrgy left?

Bet she’s done that before.

https://i.imgur.com/6xHv1ix.mp4

Other than pumped hydro, two other mechanical ways to store very large amounts of energy that have been used are compressed gas and flywheel.

I estimate the energy storage in one of these things to be about 40 kWh, so if you wanted say 4 hours storage per wind turbine, you would need 100 of these for every 1MW wind turbine, or 100,000 per typical coal fired or nuclear plant.

So the possibilities are:
a) I made a mistake in my numbers.
b) They made a mistake in their numbers.
c) It’s a con job to syphon off investors’ cash, then declare the project insolvent.

I’m going for c).

Also, I don’t see how the thing would work reliably in even a moderate wind.

The Rev Dodgson said:

I estimate the energy storage in one of these things to be about 40 kWh, so if you wanted say 4 hours storage per wind turbine, you would need 100 of these for every 1MW wind turbine, or 100,000 per typical coal fired or nuclear plant.

So the possibilities are:
a) I made a mistake in my numbers.
b) They made a mistake in their numbers.
c) It’s a con job to syphon off investors’ cash, then declare the project insolvent.

I’m going for c).

Also, I don’t see how the thing would work reliably in even a moderate wind.

Yeah spoilers it’s c. I’m just comparing it to other storage technologies. It’s going to be several orders of magnitude more expensive than pumped storage or even battery storage.

…and up till now I was a believer.

sibeen said:

…and up till now I was a believer.

The boss lady told me she’d shiv me if I woke her up by singing any more Monkees songs, but I assumed she was kidding.

Then I saw her face.

The Rev Dodgson said:

I estimate the energy storage in one of these things to be about 40 kWh, so if you wanted say 4 hours storage per wind turbine, you would need 100 of these for every 1MW wind turbine, or 100,000 per typical coal fired or nuclear plant.

So the possibilities are:
a) I made a mistake in my numbers.
b) They made a mistake in their numbers.
c) It’s a con job to syphon off investors’ cash, then declare the project insolvent.

I’m going for c).

Also, I don’t see how the thing would work reliably in even a moderate wind.

No, no, they state on their website that they can store between 10 and 35MWh.. You’re obviously mistaken.

sibeen said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I estimate the energy storage in one of these things to be about 40 kWh, so if you wanted say 4 hours storage per wind turbine, you would need 100 of these for every 1MW wind turbine, or 100,000 per typical coal fired or nuclear plant.

So the possibilities are:
a) I made a mistake in my numbers.
b) They made a mistake in their numbers.
c) It’s a con job to syphon off investors’ cash, then declare the project insolvent.

I’m going for c).

Also, I don’t see how the thing would work reliably in even a moderate wind.

No, no, they state on their website that they can store between 10 and 35MWh.. You’re obviously mistaken.

OK, I did leave out a g in my calcs, so divide my numbers by 10.

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

dv said:

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

I took the base to be an annulus with a diameter of 30 m and inner diameter of 20 m, and an average lift height of 150 m.

Could be 2-3 x more than that each way I suppose.

dv said:

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

My calcs were as follows:

I can see a doorway at the bottom, and the height appears to be about 50 times that doorway. Assuming that’s a normal human doorway, about 2 metres high, the tower is 100 metres tall, and looks about 20 metres wide. There’s some kind of operating tower through the middle of it so let us say that the cylinder is only about 90% full of movable stuff. The stuff looks like concrete, which has a density of 2400 kg/m3. The blocks seem to be about 4 metres high. When you place them on the ground, their centre of gravity is 2 metres above the ground. On average the blocks can be raised 48 metres. I assume the “uncharged” state involves all blocks being on the ground … I’d like to see them try that but for the purpose of this analysis, I’ll accept it.

100 * 10 * 10 * pi * 2400 * 9.8 * 48 * 0.9 = 32 GJ = 8.9 MWh

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

I took the base to be an annulus with a diameter of 30 m and inner diameter of 20 m, and an average lift height of 150 m.

Could be 2-3 x more than that each way I suppose.

If average lift height is 150 then the tower is 300 m high. So using your params:

(15*15 – 10*10)*pi*300*150*2400*9.8 = 415 GJ = 115 MWh
They are underselling themselves!

dv said:

dv said:

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

My calcs were as follows:

I can see a doorway at the bottom, and the height appears to be about 50 times that doorway. Assuming that’s a normal human doorway, about 2 metres high, the tower is 100 metres tall, and looks about 20 metres wide. There’s some kind of operating tower through the middle of it so let us say that the cylinder is only about 90% full of movable stuff. The stuff looks like concrete, which has a density of 2400 kg/m3. The blocks seem to be about 4 metres high. When you place them on the ground, their centre of gravity is 2 metres above the ground. On average the blocks can be raised 48 metres. I assume the “uncharged” state involves all blocks being on the ground … I’d like to see them try that but for the purpose of this analysis, I’ll accept it.

100 * 10 * 10 * pi * 2400 * 9.8 * 48 * 0.9 = 32 GJ = 8.9 MWh

OK, I also forgot to multiply by the height when I worked out my volume of blocks.

That brings my calc up to about 120 MWh per tower :).

Using the more modest params of my estimate, if they were to lay out the blocks from a 20 × 100 cylindrical tower on the ground, and the blocks really were 4 metres high, then they’d need an “laying annulus” about 50 metres in radius about the base of the tower.

(shrugs) I mean it is possible. It would be possible to build this thing.

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

dv said:

Going by the apparent scale of this thing (I’m judging by what I see is a door way), and assuming that the material is concrete, the prosecution is willing to stipulate that the storage would theoretically be around 8 MWh.

My calcs were as follows:

I can see a doorway at the bottom, and the height appears to be about 50 times that doorway. Assuming that’s a normal human doorway, about 2 metres high, the tower is 100 metres tall, and looks about 20 metres wide. There’s some kind of operating tower through the middle of it so let us say that the cylinder is only about 90% full of movable stuff. The stuff looks like concrete, which has a density of 2400 kg/m3. The blocks seem to be about 4 metres high. When you place them on the ground, their centre of gravity is 2 metres above the ground. On average the blocks can be raised 48 metres. I assume the “uncharged” state involves all blocks being on the ground … I’d like to see them try that but for the purpose of this analysis, I’ll accept it.

100 * 10 * 10 * pi * 2400 * 9.8 * 48 * 0.9 = 32 GJ = 8.9 MWh

OK, I also forgot to multiply by the height when I worked out my volume of blocks.

That brings my calc up to about 120 MWh per tower :).

Only out by a factor of 3000…

dv said:

Using the more modest params of my estimate, if they were to lay out the blocks from a 20 × 100 cylindrical tower on the ground, and the blocks really were 4 metres high, then they’d need an “laying annulus” about 50 metres in radius about the base of the tower.

(shrugs) I mean it is possible. It would be possible to build this thing.

But in the video they build the outer tower up, as the middle one comes down, so the average lift/drop would only be 1/4 of the tower height.

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

My calcs were as follows:

I can see a doorway at the bottom, and the height appears to be about 50 times that doorway. Assuming that’s a normal human doorway, about 2 metres high, the tower is 100 metres tall, and looks about 20 metres wide. There’s some kind of operating tower through the middle of it so let us say that the cylinder is only about 90% full of movable stuff. The stuff looks like concrete, which has a density of 2400 kg/m3. The blocks seem to be about 4 metres high. When you place them on the ground, their centre of gravity is 2 metres above the ground. On average the blocks can be raised 48 metres. I assume the “uncharged” state involves all blocks being on the ground … I’d like to see them try that but for the purpose of this analysis, I’ll accept it.

100 * 10 * 10 * pi * 2400 * 9.8 * 48 * 0.9 = 32 GJ = 8.9 MWh

OK, I also forgot to multiply by the height when I worked out my volume of blocks.

That brings my calc up to about 120 MWh per tower :).

Only out by a factor of 3000…

Totally negligible, compared with some of my earlier efforts at this place :)

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

Using the more modest params of my estimate, if they were to lay out the blocks from a 20 × 100 cylindrical tower on the ground, and the blocks really were 4 metres high, then they’d need an “laying annulus” about 50 metres in radius about the base of the tower.

(shrugs) I mean it is possible. It would be possible to build this thing.

But in the video they build the outer tower up, as the middle one comes down, so the average lift/drop would only be 1/4 of the tower height.

I’m making the assumption that they lay the blocks out on the ground over a wide area, so the average lift is slightly less than half the height of the tower.

Anyway, these mega projects are so 20th century.

The real solution is to build every house on a massive concrete base, say 3 m deep, and the base sits on columns that can be jacked upwards when power is available, then allowed to slide back down, generating electricity as they go.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Anyway, these mega projects are so 20th century.

The real solution is to build every house on a massive concrete base, say 3 m deep, and the base sits on columns that can be jacked upwards when power is available, then allowed to slide back down, generating electricity as they go.

How would that compare in price to a Tesla Powerwall?

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Anyway, these mega projects are so 20th century.

The real solution is to build every house on a massive concrete base, say 3 m deep, and the base sits on columns that can be jacked upwards when power is available, then allowed to slide back down, generating electricity as they go.

How would that compare in price to a Tesla Powerwall?

Rough guess, maybe 10x.

But you know what my rough guesses are worth :)

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Anyway, these mega projects are so 20th century.

The real solution is to build every house on a massive concrete base, say 3 m deep, and the base sits on columns that can be jacked upwards when power is available, then allowed to slide back down, generating electricity as they go.

How would that compare in price to a Tesla Powerwall?

Rough guess, maybe 10x.

But you know what my rough guesses are worth :)

Powerwall price is about 15k … I would think it would cost more than that just to make the plumbing and electrical connections to deal with a house that goes up and down like a yoyo.

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

How would that compare in price to a Tesla Powerwall?

Rough guess, maybe 10x.

But you know what my rough guesses are worth :)

Powerwall price is about 15k … I would think it would cost more than that just to make the plumbing and electrical connections to deal with a house that goes up and down like a yoyo.

Getting in & out of the place would also have a cost.

http://www.larkfleetgroup.co.uk/elevating-house

Elevating House

We have obtained planning permission to build an experimental house that could rise on jacks above flood waters. If tests are successful the house could provide a model that would enable housebuilding on thousands of sites across the UK which at present cannot be developed because of the risk of flooding.

We plan to build a three-bedroom detached house in Weston Hills, near Spalding, Lincolnshire that can be raised up to 1.5 metres above ground level by eight mechanical jacks.

Work on constructing the house, which will sit on a steel ring beam in place of conventional foundations, is expected to start in 2018. Experiments with raising and lowering the house – including testing long-term maintenance and operation of the jacking system – will run for up to five years.

A bit of googling indicates that the capital cost for pumped hydro is around $200000 per MWh.

So the question is: can you build this 100 metre concrete Jenga set for 20 million dollars?

The engine from my landrover powers my entire neighbourhood for the price of a few litres of water a day, bet that energy vault peoples

If say you use kids to pull the weights up using the pulley system where a small force can be used to lift heavy weights, the energy required could come from feeding the children rice and pulses that are abundant now thanks to global warming and kids don’t need money.
As a matter of fact the little tackers should be grateful for the privilege.
And you could do it 24/7 say a month on day shift/day off/month on night shift.
You could increase productivity by basing their rice ration on the amount they’ve lifted that day.
After 12 hours of that the kids would be tucked up in bed,, cut down on gangs of kids roaming the streets at nigh and it’s a practical way of fighting childhood obesity.
It’s got a lot going for it, one of those win win civic initiatives so lacking in todays politicians.

Energy Vault is the nickname the wardens gave to Zarkov’s cell.

Peak Warming Man said:

If say you use kids to pull the weights up using the pulley system where a small force can be used to lift heavy weights, the energy required could come from feeding the children rice and pulses that are abundant now thanks to global warming and kids don’t need money.
As a matter of fact the little tackers should be grateful for the privilege.
And you could do it 24/7 say a month on day shift/day off/month on night shift.
You could increase productivity by basing their rice ration on the amount they’ve lifted that day.
After 12 hours of that the kids would be tucked up in bed,, cut down on gangs of kids roaming the streets at nigh and it’s a practical way of fighting childhood obesity.
It’s got a lot going for it, one of those win win civic initiatives so lacking in todays politicians.

It’d be more cost effective to use old people as batteries, they don’t really need food anyway, if aged care is anything to go by.

dv said:

Energy Vault is the nickname the wardens gave to Zarkov’s cell.

It’s actually called Fappers Fun Factory

Zarkov said:

dv said:

Energy Vault is the nickname the wardens gave to Zarkov’s cell.

It’s actually called Fappers Fun Factory

um

dv said:

Zarkov said:

dv said:

Energy Vault is the nickname the wardens gave to Zarkov’s cell.

It’s actually called Fappers Fun Factory

um

After that blue elephant Fapper, I love his show

Zarkov said:

dv said:

Zarkov said:

It’s actually called Fappers Fun Factory

um

After that blue elephant Fapper

I don’t watch that kind of stuff

dv said:

Zarkov said:

dv said:

um

After that blue elephant Fapper

I don’t watch that kind of stuff

You must think I’m a bit strange