Gustavo Bernal Torres
Construction of First Chinese Deployment of Gravity-Based Energy Storage System
Construction underway since March 2022 for the first 100 MWh EVx system to support grid resiliency and delivery of renewable energy to the Chinese national grid.
The 100 megawatt-hour system is being built adjacent to a wind farm in the Jiangsu province outside Shanghai. The system raises 30-ton composite bricks so that "potential energy is stored in the elevation gain of the brick," their site notes. When power is needed, it "releases kinetic energy back to the grid via controlled lowering of the bricks using gravitational force."
The project is the first utility scale gravity-based storage deployment between a U.S. and Chinese company and was approved by the local city government and provincial government with support from the central government agencies within the People's Republic of China.