Energy storage
Energy storage has become an important consideration for many renewable energy generation methods, especially for popular methods such as solar or wind energy, both of which are intermittent energy producers that require storage for constant use. Currently, 96% of the world’s energy storage comes from pumped hydro, which uses excess generated electricity to pump water up a dam and then allowed to fall and turn turbines that produce electricity when the demand exceeds generation. The problem with pumped hydro, however, is that the setup requires specific geographies that can be difficult to find. A similar concept that uses cement instead of water has been realized by Energy Vault, a Swiss startup. They created a setup that uses an electric crane surrounded by stacks of 35-ton concrete blocks, which can be produced using waste products, to store energy by using excess energy generation to power the crane to lift and stack the concrete blocks. When energy is needed, the blocks are allowed to fall and the rotated motor would send energy back to the grid. The setup would have a storage capacity of 25-80 MWh.