Grid-Level Energy Storage

Industrial heat consumes a huge proportion of global energy. Rondo Energy says its brick-toasting heat storage device is so cheap and efficient that it makes decarbonization an instant no-brainer across a huge range of industries. Bill Gates agrees.

Aluminum has an energy density more than 50 times higher than lithium ion, if you treat it as an energy storage medium in a clean redox cycle system. Swiss scientists are developing the technology as a renewable energy stash for the European winter.

Polar Night Energy says it's developed and commercialized a super-cheap, super-simple way of storing energy for anywhere between hours and months, simply using heated sand. Its first 8-megawatt-hour thermal battery has gone online in Finland.

In less than 18 months, Energy Dome has opened the first of its remarkable grid-level energy storage plants. These "CO2 batteries" store renewable energy over long periods and release it quickly, at less than half the cost of big lithium batteries.

Researchers want to turn skyscrapers into giant gravity batteries for remarkably cheap renewable energy storage, moving heavy weights up and down in the elevators to store and release energy. The team says it'll cost far less than conventional batteries.

A new symmetrical design for flow batteries takes us a step closer to unlocking their potential as a solution for grid-scale energy storage, and leans on more environmentally-friendly materials while it's at it.

As useful as renewable energy sources are, they need to be backed up by storage systems. Ocean Battery is a new design for an energy storage system that functions a bit like a hydroelectric dam at the bottom of the sea.

A colossal US$22 billion infrastructure project will send Australian sunshine more than 3,100 miles to Singapore, via high-voltage undersea cables. Opening in 2027, it'll be the largest solar farm and battery storage facility in history.

Carbon dioxide may finally get its chance to become a solution in the climate crisis. Italy's Energy Dome says its CO2 batteries will store energy at less than half the cost of lithium "big batteries," while also being very responsive to load demand.

Boston's Form Energy says its iron-air batteries store up to 100 hours' worth of energy at a tenth the cost of a lithium battery farm. They could make a huge contribution to long-term storage as the world makes its transition toward renewable energy.

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have come up with a new design that addresses a number of shortcomings with current molten salt batteries, demonstrating one that can be constructed far more cheaply than currently available versions.

This new buoyancy energy storage system harnesses a powerful force familiar to anyone who's tried to hold a beach ball underwater, and it could offer grid-scale energy storage cheaper than batteries – as well as super-cheap hydrogen compression.