The next world’s tallest building could be a 3,000-feet-high battery

[240B]

CNN
By Amy Gunia
August 6 2024

Humans have long built towering structures to showcase the power of empires, rulers, religions and corporations. Today, more tall buildings are popping up than ever before. But skyscrapers could soon have a new purpose: storing renewable energy.

One of the biggest hurdles to a power grid dominated by clean energy is the intermittency of some renewable sources. Sometimes clouds roll in when solar energy is needed, or the wind stops blowing, and turbines can’t generate power. Other times, the sun and wind produce more electricity than is required.

Storage is crucial for balancing generation and consumption. A combination of technologies — from various forms of batteries to other energy storage methods — will likely be necessary to increase capacity.

Enter battery skyscrapers. At the end of May, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the architecture and engineering firm behind some of the world’s tallest buildings, announced a partnership with the energy storage company Energy Vault to develop new gravity energy storage solutions.

That includes a design for a skyscraper that would use a motor powered by electricity from the grid to elevate giant blocks when energy demand is low. These blocks would store the electricity as “potential” energy. When there is demand, the blocks would be lowered, releasing the energy, which would be converted into electricity.

(more)
https://www.cnn.com/style/skyscraper-batteries-som-energy-vault-spc/index.html

[Cyber Liberty]

It'll be Kewl when that candle ignites!!

[Smokin Joe]

The concept of storing potential energy and converting it into electricity is nothing new.

This facility does this with water, and has since 1985:
https://www.dominionenergy.com/projects-and-facilities/hydroelectric-power-facilities-and-projects/bath-county-pumped-storage-station
I did archaeological work there the summer after I graduated with a BS in Geology, before heading west to work on my Masters'.

[Hoodat]

The concept of storing potential energy and converting it into electricity is nothing new.

This facility does this with water, and has since 1985:
https://www.dominionenergy.com/projects-and-facilities/hydroelectric-power-facilities-and-projects/bath-county-pumped-storage-station
I did archaeological work there the summer after I graduated with a BS in Geology, before heading west to work on my Masters'.

@Smokin Joe

When I was in Jr. High, VEPCO came by the school and gave an educational PR presentation on what they did.  The Bath County project was in the early stages at the time.  I couldn't understand why they would spend all that money on something that netted a negative energy output.  I realize now what they were trying to achieve.  But the physical inefficiencies built in makes it a net energy consumer.  Obviously to them, it was worth the cost if it provided a boost during peak hours.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe

When I was in Jr. High, VEPCO came by the school and gave an educational PR presentation on what they did.  The Bath County project was in the early stages at the time.  I couldn't understand why they would spend all that money on something that netted a negative energy output.  I realize now what they were trying to achieve.  But the physical inefficiencies built in makes it a net energy consumer.  Obviously to them, it was worth the cost if it provided a boost during peak hours.

There is going to be energy loss pumping from the lower reservoir to the upper, certainly. I am not sure how much this is offset by the natural filling of the upper reservoir. They were just Upper Back Creek and Lower Back Creek when I was there, doing prehistoric and historical archaeology, unofficially the geologist on my crew. There was a wonderful swimming hole across the valley from our camp, but (and I can tell from experience) the water was ice cold (snow melt from the upper valley) until mid July...

The idea, however of being able to meet peak load demand without building a facility that would be idling at night, and utilizing baseload to reset the generation capacity likely appealed considerably, as that is what is expected of conventional power generation systems now in light of the 'renewable-ing' of the grid. At least they knew what they were building when they built it, and for that purpose. (Now watch some a##h*le with a fly rod sue to 'restore' the creeks...)

[DefiantMassRINO]

Already been done ...

https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/12/02/northfield-mountain-hydroelectric-station
New England's Largest Battery Is Hidden Inside A Mass. Mountain
Updated December 02, 2016
Bruce Gellerman

... Today's batteries come in all shapes and sizes. The largest in New England -- and once the world -- was built 45 years ago and is still working.

But it's hidden, on top and deep inside a mountain in north-central Massachusetts.

Northfield Mountain is a naturalist's wonderland. But if you look around, you'll see an unnatural site: a 5-billion-gallon battery.

"So what you're looking at right here is the upper reservoir, and I consider this to be the battery for the station," says Gus Bakas, director of Massachusetts hydro operations for FirstLight Power Resources.

The company owns and operates the Northfield Mountain pumped storage hydroelectric station. The generators are powered by this manmade mountaintop lake.

"So this is our supply, our stored energy, similar to a battery," Bakas continues. "So when we need that battery to turn on, we would take this water and we would run it into the facility to produce power."

The hydroelectric generating facility is located hundreds of feet below the reservoir, hidden deep inside the hollowed-out Northfield Mountain. But you'd never know it, except for an occasional hint. ...

... many, many moons ago.

[The_Reader_David]

It'll be Kewl when that candle ignites!!

Were it a 3000 foot tall lithium-ion battery bank they were describing (sheer folly to build for the reason you alluded to with your love of fireworks) it would.  But it's a big tower that weights get hoisted to the top of using electric motors during peak generating capacity periods that reverse phase and become generators when the weights slowly fall back to the bottom when generating capacity is down.

More folly from the renewables-can-power-the-world crowd (though less foolish than you had thought).  If they really, really believe CO2 emissions represent an existential threat to the world, they would be urgently pushing nuclear power, but....

[Kamaji]

Were it a 3000 foot tall lithium-ion battery bank they were describing (sheer folly to build for the reason you alluded to with your love of fireworks) it would.  But it's a big tower that weights get hoisted to the top of using electric motors during peak generating capacity periods that reverse phase and become generators when the weights slowly fall back to the bottom when generating capacity is down.

More folly from the renewables-can-power-the-world crowd (though less foolish than you had thought).  If they really, really believe CO2 emissions represent an existential threat to the world, they would be urgently pushing nuclear power, but....

In other words, a gigantic self-winding grandfather clock.