China's 40-story concrete tower stores wind energy by lifting and dropping 35-ton blocks
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@autonocion
Summary
China has built a 148-meter (40-story) concrete tower near Shanghai that stores wind farm energy using a gravity-based system. When wind power is abundant, 35-ton blocks are lifted and stacked; when the grid needs electricity, the blocks are lowered through generators. This gravity energy storage system offers an alternative to pumped hydro and lithium batteries, using no rare earth minerals or lithium. The tower can store up to 100 MWh of energy and has a round-trip efficiency of about 80%. It represents a novel approach to grid-scale energy storage that could help address the intermittency problem of renewable energy sources.
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bskyChina's 40-story concrete tower stores wind energy by lifting and dropping 35-ton blocksautonocion.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledStoring electricity from wind and solar is the part of the green transition nobody likes to talk about, mostly because the answers are either boring or enormous.
China has a third option up and running on its coast now, and it doesn't look like either one.
North of Shanghai there's a 148-meter concrete tower that stores a wind farm's electricity by stacking 35-ton blocks on top of each other.
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China built a 40-story tower that stores wind power by stacking concrete
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