Energy Vault will license six additional EVx gravity energy storage systems in China just months after starting work on the world’s first GESS facility near Shanghai.
Are wenches simpler than big ass hydro pumps? Don’t know…plus you have to deal with water evaporating and erosion.
The level of effort seems comparable.
Edit: The energy vault design is kind of brilliant in its simplicity. I had to look it up. Its a building full of modular elevator shafts that have huge weights in them. Each one has an electric engine at the top.
Excess energy means they pull the weights up. When you need energy, you regeneratively break the weight back down.
So essentially it’s one complex moving part at the top of each shaft.
That seems much easier to maintain than a giant basin of water, pumps to move the water up, turbines to capture the output, and big ass valves to control the flow.
You can put these anywhere…water storage will be environment dependent for a lot of reasons.
I don’t think either one is better, just depends on the location and application.
Heavy weights at the end of 100m cables blowing in the wind are incredibly difficult to work with compared to water pumps. It is why Crane Operator is a profession and Water Pumper is not.
Are wenches simpler than big ass hydro pumps? Don’t know…plus you have to deal with water evaporating and erosion.
The level of effort seems comparable.
Edit: The energy vault design is kind of brilliant in its simplicity. I had to look it up. Its a building full of modular elevator shafts that have huge weights in them. Each one has an electric engine at the top.
Excess energy means they pull the weights up. When you need energy, you regeneratively break the weight back down.
So essentially it’s one complex moving part at the top of each shaft.
That seems much easier to maintain than a giant basin of water, pumps to move the water up, turbines to capture the output, and big ass valves to control the flow.
You can put these anywhere…water storage will be environment dependent for a lot of reasons.
I don’t think either one is better, just depends on the location and application.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
Fair enough. If you find it simpler to operate. More power to you
But if you have mountains available, water does seem more practical
Yea, I agree with that. If the landscape is conducive to it, hydro makes more sense.
I think they’re both very cool chunks of engineering.
Heavy weights at the end of 100m cables blowing in the wind are incredibly difficult to work with compared to water pumps. It is why Crane Operator is a profession and Water Pumper is not.
They’re enclosed. No wind.
Well, at least they fixed one part of the design. The working model they demoed was open-air.