Deal signed for gravity energy storage deployment across China

Energy Vault has entered into partnerships with Atlas Renewable and investor China Tianying for the deployment of the company’s gravity energy storage technology in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Energy Vault has signed a license and royalty agreement under which the company will be paid $50 million by Atlas Renewable. The license enables Atlas Renewable to deploy, operate and maintain Energy Vault’s gravity energy storage technology in China.

The agreement represents the first gravity-based storage partnership between a US and a Chinese company for the deployment of the technology in China.

China Tianying is investing $100 million in Energy Vault, combined with the $50 million from Atlas Renewable, providing Energy Vault with a total of $200 million in capital to fund its operations in China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The three companies will start with the deployment of a 100MWh energy storage system in the second quarter of 2022 in Rudong Jiangsu province outside Shanghai, China.

Energy Vault’s energy management platform will also be integrated with the storage system to optimise the efficiency of the plant.

Energy Vault (EV) uses waste materials such as excavated soil at customer construction sites, mine tailings, coal combustion residuals (coal ash), and fiberglass to make its long-duration energy storage systems.

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The technology is based on physics and mechanical engineering fundamentals of pumped hydro which replaces water with custom-made, environmentally-friendly composite blocks that do not lose storage capacity or degrade over time.

This means the firm’s solution is cost-effective and environmentally friendly to enable the use of renewable energy from times when demand is low to times when capacity is mostly needed during peak periods, according to the statement.

China has set a target to reach carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2060. To achieve the target, China has a goal to deploy 1,200GW of wind and solar by 2030 which will require energy storage to be fully leveraged.

At the same time, renewable energies are expected to account for 90% of all energy generation by 2050, a milestone that requires grid-scale energy storage capacity to increase by ten times in the next ten years, according to the statement.

Eric Fang, Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Renewable, noted further, “EV’s technology removes a key obstacle to full utilization of energy produced globally from green energy sources. Following China’s commitment to achieving Carbon Peak in 2030 and Carbon Neutrality in 2060: Renewable Energy Storage is and will be the answer.”