CO2 energy storage tech set for commercialisation

Italian power engineering company Ansaldo Energia has licenced the use of long duration energy storage developer Energy Dome’s CO2 solution.

Under the licence agreement, the first for the technology, Ansaldo Energia will commercialise the CO2 battery in core markets where the company has a historic commercial presence.

The agreement also foresees the marketing license of Energy Dome’s CO2 Energy Transition Combined Cycle (ETCC) technology in combination with gas turbines.

The two companies intend to start construction of the first ETCC and CO2 battery commercial plants by the beginning of 2023. Ansaldo Energia will provide the turnkey EPC, including performance guarantees, based on the front end engineering design developed by Energy Dome.

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“The diversification of sources and the ability to store energy are crucial issues for the energy strategies of the next few years and will be a strong point of Ansaldo GreenTech’s offer,” comments Giuseppe Marino, CEO of Ansaldo Energia.

“Ansaldo Energia and Ansaldo GreenTech will offer solutions capable of providing concrete answers to the energy transition challenges. We considered Energy Dome’s development capacity to be highly innovative.”

CO2 battery

Energy Dome’s CO2 battery is based on the compression and expansion of CO2 in a closed-loop process to offer a potential long duration, large scale energy storage option.

In charging mode, i.e. drawing power from the grid, CO2 is withdrawn from an atmospheric gasholder, the ‘dome’, compressed and then condensed to a liquid state, in which it can be stored under pressure at ambient temperatures.

In discharge mode, the liquid CO2 is evaporated and expanded into a turbine, from where it is returned to the dome for reuse in the next charging cycle.

As one of the few gases that can be condensed and stored as a liquid at ambient temperature, CO2 is considered to offer advantages over the broadly technologically similar compressed air and liquid air storage options, the former requiring large volumes and the latter extreme cooling.

The CO2 ETCC is similar to the addition of a gas turbine and the addition to the process of the external heat from the exhaust of the gas turbine by means of a boiler for both storage and power production.

Energy Dome claims the CO2 battery with an expected operational life of 25 years can provide the range of services for the grid from fast response with special configuration and optimal cycling in the range from 4 to 24 hours, e.g. for storage with excess generation during the day and discharge overnight or during the next morning peak.

Demonstration plant

In November 2021 Energy Dome closed an $11 million Series A fundraising to complete the construction of a 2.5MW/4MWh demonstration plant in Sardinia.

Alongside the fundraise, the Italian energy supplier A2A Energia, one of the investors, entered a memorandum of understanding for the first commercial deployment of a 100MWh CO2 battery.

Claudio Spadacini, CEO and founder of Energy Dome, declares that the agreement with Ansaldo Energia marks a significant new milestone for the company.

“We have the ambition and the awareness of being able to provide the answer that the world desperately needs, that is, a concrete and reliable long-lasting energy storage technology, capable of decarbonising the energy industry.”