Gravitricity - Energy Storage Made Easier for a Renewable Future (in 2020)

[Music] with the world slowly transitioning into clean green and renewable energy sources companies have been setting new challenging goals in order to be part of this conservative change one company specifically promises it can deliver a missing piece in the energy distribution and storage process gravitricity the company that might change the way we think about energy storage let's go [Music] as you might have guessed gravitricity is a combination of two well-known words gravity and electricity the scottish startup was able to secure funding for its innovative technology with its founder peter franco previously inventing the world's first tidal turbine for generating energy which was later bought by siemens one of the major manufacturers and production companies in the world when energy is generated usually it's consumed but what about extra energy where does it go what happens when supply exceeds demand this problem is quite common these days especially in the food industry where leftover food is usually thrown away this field is probably a very important thing to look into if you are interested in trying to solve world hunger in general i'd like to hear your thoughts on this world problem and how we can potentially tackle it in the comment section below but when we're talking about energy is there a way to store that excess energy and use it later this is a very important question that gravitricity is trying to solve the company's whole business and operational model can be understood in one simple sentence what goes up must come down let me explain we already generate energy in vast ways from solar wind hydro biothermal and tidal to say a bunch but we've yet to discover more storing energy on the other hand hasn't had much attention the past couple of years some of the different ways we store energy nowadays is through pumped hydroelectric systems which uses the mass of water at different elevations to store energy a similar concept to what we will be introducing in a bit there's also thermal energy storage which is achieved with widely different technologies it allows excess thermal energy to be stored and used later the final and probably the most famous one is batteries according to the u.s department of energy in 2018 94 of the u.s electrical energy storage was in the form of pumped hydroelectric storage which by the way was installed in the 1970s the six percent of other storage capacity is a mix of battery thermal storage and many others with the cost of batteries per kilowatt hour reduced year on year which is evident with the increase of demand of electric cars and smartphone usage in the world batteries are becoming more and more necessary available and mass produced this is seen by tesla's recent battery day event where they're promising a 25 000 base model electric car in the next two years as their battery technology advances if you didn't know tesla's actually heavily invested in their battery storage systems the company is developing new battery storage grids in many areas around the world so if you notice there are a lot of options i just thought i'd provide you with a brief idea of what is out there but now let's delve deeper into the topic of a day gravitricity envisions a different strategy which is shown in the setup you see right here they believe they can solve this problem by using an electric winch attached to a large weight and a vertical shaft connected by the cables now focus this is where things get interesting when excess energy is produced we use that energy to raise the weight to the top when energy is needed in the grid that same weight is released in order to generate the energy needed remember energy can neither be created nor destroyed it's simply transformed from one form to another and trust me i won't bother you with the physics details of it just understand that we are using the energy received in order to elevate the weight and then use it again by lowering it to generate that same energy as explained by blair the managing director of gravitricity when there is excess electricity for example on a windy day the weight is winched to the top of the shaft ready to generate power this weight can then be released when required in less than a second and the winches become generated producing either a large burst of electricity quickly or releasing it more slowly depending on what is needed what's very interesting about this is that the energy produced is relatively stable and flexible according to our needs meaning it gives a consistent jolt of energy to be consumed which isn't evident in other options the technology is designed to last for 50 years has 80 to 90 efficiency and it's cost effective because it makes use of pre-existing mine shafts you heard that right they'll be using old abandoned mine shafts and make use of them that's genius unlike other renewable energy storage solutions such as lithium-ion batteries there's no issue of disposal or degradation and the implementation of this kind of technology would also mean increased investment and new jobs in x-mining communities so people who used to work in mining can be reallocated and resourced into this new field how cool is that the target groups are generally electric distribution networks and major power users with a design life of 50 years response time from zero to full power in less than a second and efficiency between 80 to 90 percent gravitation seems like a dream do you think it is of course let's face it some things are too good to be true economically it is infeasible to use this on one or two households the costs would simply not justify your investment you're better off just buying a battery and storing the excess energy there because it won't generate enough energy digging is also a big challenge and extremely costly so this is usually only convenient with old mine shafts the very thing that we don't actually have accurate data about and that very fact the lack of data is also a major downside and will probably set back the company a couple of years into developing a network in october 2019 the company raised more than 750 000 pounds to fund its systems then in early twenty twenty the company received three hundred thousand pounds from innovate uk to analyze disused mines in south africa however fundraising has been severely impacted by the pandemic and economic downturn recently they are currently building a 16 meter demonstrator rig in scotland which will be connected to the existing grid if successful this will be followed by a full-scale commercial prototype in a disused mine shaft the company is also planning systems for europe south africa and australia gravitricity is teaming up with the well-respected dutch winch and offshore manufacturer huseman equipment bv if you ask me expert help is always important in building a startup of this potential the first full-scale prototype will be deployed in 2021 or 2022 at a disused mine in the uk they have also signed a land rental agreement with fourth ports to build their first energy storage demonstrator work on this one million pound project is set to begin this october with plans for operations to begin in december 2020 the company claims the output from one average mineshaft could power 63 000 homes for an hour you might think this novel idea is one of a kind but several people have taken initiatives into developing similar concepts in addition to the gravitricity system there are several other gravity-based storage systems in development like mountain gravity energy storage where the key element used is actually sand similar to pumped hydroelectric systems in this case sand will be used rather than water according to them it's more convenient because sun doesn't evaporate which sounds good to me there's also energy volt which uses a 6-arm crane on top of a 33-storey tower to store energy by raising and lowering massive blocks of concrete their ingenuity comes from using automated softwares that operate the cranes and oversees the management of power by itself it's crazy it's very interesting to see how everyone is trying to get on board with the fact that our planet has to be preserved in such innovative ways and let's hope for other innovations that still await us in terms of renewable energy and the journey to preserve the environment at the end of the day we want compliments not this or that this and that that is the future i think everything we do is really important towards this noble goal at the end of the day what we do now will help everyone in the future thank you for watching let me know what you think about these different technologies and whether you're excited about the future of renewable energy i myself found this extremely interesting and thought i had to share it stay tuned for the podcast episode on sunday if you benefited from this please help the channel grow by subscribing and sharing the video with your friends i'll see you the next one you

Channel: Kurious Koala

Views: 24,563

Rating: 4.792717 out of 5

Keywords: Gravity, Electricity, Gravitricity, Energy, Energy Storage, Gravity Energy Storage, Lithium ion, Renewable Energy

Id: 5aiWgzppWqg

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020