charging

Five-minute car charging

September 17, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A long-standing complaint about electric cars is the amount of time it takes to charge their batteries. A decade ago, this was a serious shortcoming. Even at the fastest chargers available at the time, it could take hours to refill the electric fuel tank. Combined with the limited range earlier electric cars had, this made long-distance road trips in an electric car something only for the adventurous.

Nowadays, electric cars can go much further on a charge – 300 miles and more – and the fastest public chargers can add 200 miles in 20 minutes. With this kind of performance, electric cars are eminently practical for the great majority of drivers and the great majority of road trips. But for some people, it just isn’t good enough. They want to be able to charge up a car as fast as they can fill up a tank of gas.

That capability is about to be available in China. Two Chinese companies announced technology breakthroughs that will allow electric cars to add 250 miles of range in five minutes. China is the world’s largest user and producer of electric cars, and the country has invested heavily in charging technology, especially in the infrastructure enhancements required for high-speed charging.

When will this capability be available in the United States? It isn’t clear. The Trump Administration has been aggressively rolling back policies that support the EV industry. The regulatory changes that would permit higher-power charging stations are unlikely to happen any time soon.

Electric cars are already very practical for most people, but if one wants them to be able to please everyone, one may have to go to China.

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Why Can’t the U.S. Build 5-Minute E.V. Chargers?

Photo, posted April 17, 2023, courtesy of FirstEnergy via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Super drivers and electric cars

September 12, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The average American driver travels about 13,400 miles a year. The top 10% of drivers average about 40,200 miles a year and account for 35% of the nation’s gasoline use from private light-duty vehicles, meaning cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, vans, and minivans. Those 21 million Americans alone burn more gasoline than is burned each year in Brazil, Canada, and Russia combined.

These super drivers often live in rural areas and small towns, drive an average of 116 miles each weekday, and typically own vehicles that are larger and less fuel efficient. Many have long commutes to work because they were pushed out of cities by rising housing prices. Some are tradespeople who travel from site to site all day in their jobs.

Given the disproportionate amount of gasoline usage by this small segment of the population, the key to cutting vehicle emissions by adopting electric vehicles may rest with super drivers. And so far, not many of them have made the transition.

A report by the environmental nonprofit group Coltura contends that getting super drivers to switch to electric cars would lead to a much faster reduction in emissions.

The range of most recent electric cars is sufficient for most super drivers. The obstacles remaining include availability of convenient charging stations, but that is changing. Finding the right vehicle might also be a problem, but electric pickup trucks and large SUVs are entering the market.

The transition to electric vehicles is important for society, and the most active drivers need to take part in it.

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Are You a Super Driver? Some States Want to Help You Go Electric.

Photo, posted January 9, 2025, courtesy of Phillip Pessar via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Energy storage with iron-air batteries

January 24, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Cambridge Energy Storage Project in Cambridge, Minnesota will be the first commercial deployment of iron-air battery technology. Developed by startup company Form Energy, the battery system will provide 1.5 MW and 150 MWh of multi-day energy storage.

Iron-air batteries are based on the principle of reversible rusting. When discharging, the battery releases energy by breathing in oxygen from the air and converting iron metal to rust. When charging, the battery takes up electrical current that converts rust back into iron and breathes out oxygen.

An individual iron-air battery module is about the size of a washer/dryer set and contains about 50 individual cells filled with a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte. For a utility-scale system like that being built in Cambridge, modules are grouped together in enclosures and hundreds of enclosures grouped together in megawatt-scale power blocks. A one-megawatt low-density system would take up about half an acre of land. High-density systems would be capable of producing more than 3 MW per acre.

The technology has lower costs compared to lithium-ion battery technology but may be best suited as complementary with it since lithium-ion is primarily used for short-duration energy storage while air-iron can store energy for several days.

The system is expected to be operational by late 2025. Great River Energy, the operator of the system, plans to conduct a multi-year study to evaluate the system’s performance and potential for broader development.

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Minnesota co-op breaks ground on multi-day energy storage project

Photo courtesy of Form Energy.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Faster electric vehicle charging

December 25, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

One concern that people have in replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles is the time it takes to charge them. Charging an EV at home from an ordinary 110V electrical outlet is a slow process; installing a 220V outlet speeds things up considerably but it still can take all night to fully charge a car. The driving range of electric cars has increased over the years so that now there are many cars that can go 300 miles or more on a charge. For most people, so-called range anxiety is mostly gone. But on long road trips, charging time can be a real issue.

There are increasing numbers of high-speed chargers along or adjacent to major highways that can provide 200 miles of driving range in less than half an hour. But people want more charge, and they want it faster.

There are multiple efforts in improving EV batteries and charger technology aimed at transforming a visit to a public charger to an experience comparable to filling up at a gasoline station.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have designed a new kind of lithium-ion battery that will be able to go from zero battery power to 80% in just 15 minutes. This technology would certainly enhance the capabilities of today’s electric cars. However, it is quite possible that other technologies that surpass this performance will emerge in the near future. There is talk across the industry of cars that can charge up in 5 or 10 minutes. There is also the prospect of many cars that can drive 500 miles on a charge. These features would address the needs or desires of all but a very small number of drivers.

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From zero to 80 per cent in just 15 minutes

Photo, posted May 7, 2022, courtesy of Sharon Hahn Darlin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Progress towards electric school buses

November 8, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The U.S. has nearly half a million school buses providing daily transportation for about 20 million students. Most of these buses are powered by diesel engines which not only dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but also fill kids’ lungs with harmful fumes.

Thanks to various federal and state incentive programs, this situation is starting to change. School districts all over the country are beginning to swap out old diesel buses for emissions-free electric-powered school buses.

Electric school buses are finding their way into school districts of all sizes and demographics. The first district in the country to go fully electric was in Martinsville, Texas, which last year converted its 4-bus fleet. The first large urban district to go all-electric was the 74-bus fleet in Oakland, California this summer.

The EPA’s $5 billion Clean School Bus program and many state initiatives are providing incentives for the transition. Five years ago, there were less than 1,000 electric school buses in the U.S. Now there are about 5,000 and more than 7,000 additional buses are in the pipeline.

Apart from the climate implications, there is urgency to replacing diesel school buses from a health perspective. Diesel exhaust is classified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and it contains fine particles and nitrogen oxides, both of which are well-documented asthma triggers.

Electric buses are more expensive than diesel buses, but they are much cheaper to operate. School districts need to put in place charging infrastructure. The transition is not so easy to accomplish, but it is an important step, and more and more school districts are taking it.

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Slowly but Surely, U.S. School Buses Are Starting to Electrify

Photo, posted May 5, 2021, courtesy of California Energy Commission via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric cars and power outages

October 21, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As more and more cars are powered by electricity instead of gasoline, people are beginning to worry about what happens during power outages caused by storms and other disruptive events. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that this is a brand-new problem for drivers. However, when electricity goes out over a sizeable area, most gas pumps stop working and it isn’t easy to keep gas cars running either.

Electric cars are often charged at home every day and such cars are more likely to be almost fully charged than nearly depleted at any time. For those drivers, a power failure is unlikely to be much of a concern unless it persists for a very lengthy period. On road trips, unless a power outage extends over a very wide area, one can probably get to a charger that is still operating.

Nonetheless, the federal government has commissioned researchers at Iowa State University to study potential solutions to possible difficulties in keeping electric cars running during power failures. The goal of the study is to find ways to reduce the outage frequency of chargers by 75% and the power restoration time by 50%.

The study will evaluate the resiliency of charging stations in extreme weather events and identify ways to quickly restore power to charging stations in the event of outages. Included are onsite solar power and battery storage at chargers as well as redundant power lines from different electrical substations. There is even the possibility of trucks delivering pre-charged batteries to charging stations after a storm. Identifying and developing technologies to improve the resilience of charging stations is an important goal as the transition to electric vehicles continues.

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Researchers working to keep electric vehicles charging, even when the lights go out

Photo, posted July 29, 2013, courtesy of Jeff Cooper via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solid-state batteries for cars

September 19, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Battery-powered electric vehicles have historically faced the challenges of limited driving range and long charging time. In recent years, both of these limitations have been largely overcome for many if not most drivers. Popular EVs on the market can go 300 miles and more on a charge and today’s fastest charging networks can add 200 miles of range in 20 minutes. But many people want even more range and even faster charging. Both of these things will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Multiple companies are working on solid-state batteries, which hold more energy in a given volume than current batteries. The lithium-ion batteries that power today’s EVs (as well as our phones and computers) have a liquid or gel electrolyte. Solid-state batteries use a solid ceramic or polymer electrolyte that provides higher energy density, faster charging times, and reduced fire risk as well.

Samsung announced that it will produce solid-state batteries for vehicles by 2027. Toyota says it is on track to develop a solid-state battery by 2027 or 2028. California-based QuantumScape has an agreement to supply solid-state batteries to Volkswagen for mass production. Tesla has not said what it is doing with regard to solid-state batteries, but it is likely that it’s also pursuing the technology.

The upshot of all of this is that EV ranges are likely to increase dramatically over the next several years leading to the availability of vehicles that can go 600 miles or more on a charge. Given that the cost of EVs is already rapidly becoming at least competitive with if not lower than that of gasoline-powered cars, the days of internal combustion are becoming numbered.

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Want an EV With 600 Miles of Range? It’s Coming

Photo, posted August 17, 2024, courtesy of Bill Abbott via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Gravity storage on the grid

June 4, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

For the past several years, the Swiss-based company Energy Vault has been developing an energy storage system based on the principle of using mechanical devices to lift heavy concrete blocks into stacks using power generated by wind turbines or other renewable sources. When energy is needed, the blocks are lowered back to the ground, spinning generators in the process.

The principle of storing energy in the form of gravitational potential energy is the most widely used form of energy storage in existence but usually works by pumping water into a reservoir at higher elevation and then letting the water come back down when energy is needed.

Energy Vault has built a grid-scale 100 MWh gravity storage system in Rudong China. It has now been successfully tested with charging and discharging and has been commissioned. Pending final provincial and state approvals, it will be the world’ first commercial, utility-scale non-pumped hydro gravity energy storage system.

The Rudong project teamed Energy Vault with environmental management company CTNY and Atlas Renewable. Energy Vault has extended its license agreement with Atlas Renewable to 15 years. CTNY has announced plans for eight additional deployments of the Energy Vault gravity storage system across China, representing more than 3.7 GWh of energy storage.

Energy Vault’s technology has attracted a fair amount of skepticism from parts of the energy community based on the environmental burdens of concrete as well as durability issues. It appears the technology will have significant real-world testing in China, which should provide unambiguous answers to everyone’s questions.

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Energy Vault Announces Successful Testing and Commissioning of First EVx 100 MWh Gravity Energy Storage System by China Tianying, Extension of Atlas Renewable Licensing Agreement to 15 Years

Photo, posted December 21, 2018, courtesy of Nancy Winfrey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Wireless car charging

April 17, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It’s increasingly common to see cars hooked up to charging cables in shopping centers, rest stops, and dedicated charging stations. Charging electric cars is easy to do, just like charging phones and laptop computers. These days, it is pretty common to charge phones without using any charging cable at all because of the availability of wireless charging technology. The same thing may well happen with electric cars.

A team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has successfully demonstrated wireless charging of electric cars with high efficiency and fairly fast charging speed.

The patented system was used to charge up a Hyundai Kona EV using electromagnetic fields, which is essentially how phone chargers work. The technology makes use of a polyphase electromagnetic coupling coil, which is lightweight and small. Rotating magnetic fields generated in the coil’s windings boost the power available. The system provided 100-kW of power with 96% efficiency. That isn’t as powerful as the fastest high-speed charging stations, but it is considerably more than any home charging solution can provide. For many vehicles, such a charger could provide 50% battery capacity in less than 20 minutes.

Battery technology continues to improve leading to larger capacity, faster charging, longer battery life, and lower cost. At some point, charging up an electric car will take no more time than pumping gas.

The Oak Ridge researchers consider this development to be a breakthrough achievement that could open the door to fast and efficient wireless charging for electric passenger vehicles. One could imagine having the ability to drive up to a charging spot and charging up the battery without even getting out of the car.

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Charging up the commute

Photo, posted July 12, 2021, courtesy of Chris Yarzab via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A plug for all cars

January 23, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Different brands of electric cars have required different charging connections. There has been no standard connector for charging. But now, as the transition to electric vehicles is accelerating, there is the North American Charging Standard, which within in the next couple of years, will be common to pretty much any new electric vehicle on the road.

There have been several different charging connector systems in use by auto manufacturers and each charging station offered only a particular one of them. The largest charging network in the US has been Tesla’s Supercharger Network, which uses a proprietary standard it put in place in 2012. Tesla offered to open up their charging technology to other cars but auto manufacturers declined to take them up on the offer for a number of years. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, provided federal subsidies for building out fast charging networks, provided a common charging standard was adopted. That has broken the log-jam.

The Tesla Charging Standard has been renamed the North American Charging Standard and Tesla opened its technology to other manufacturers in November 2022.

Automakers who have signed on to the standard include BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Lucid, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Polestar, Rivian, Subaru, Toyota, and Volvo. In December, the Volkswagen Group – which includes Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi – announced that they are also implementing it for future vehicles in North America, starting in 2025. (The only significant holdout is Stellantis, parent of Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep).

It will be a year or two before cars from all these companies will have the NACS connector and be able to charge at the same stations, but it will happen.

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Volkswagen, Audi, And Porsche Finally Commit To Using Tesla’s NACS Plug

Photo, posted July 8, 2023, courtesy of Michael Swan via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Minimizing The Impact Of EVs On The Grid | Earth Wise

May 4, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Two current trends are the increasing reliance on renewable sources in the electric grid and the increasing use of electric vehicles. According to some projections, these trends could lead to the need for costly new power plants to meet peak loads in the evening when cars are plugged in to charge. Overproduction of power from solar farms during the daytime would require expanded energy storage capacity so as not to waste all that generating capacity.

A new study by MIT researchers has found that it is possible to mitigate or eliminate these problems without the need for advanced technological systems and complex infrastructure. The key elements of the strategy are the strategic placement of charging stations and the practice of delaying the onset of home charging.

Better availability of charging stations at workplaces could help to soak up peak power being produced at midday from solar power installations. In general, placing of charging stations in strategic ways, rather than letting them spring up just anywhere, could make a big difference.

Delaying home charging to times when there is less electricity demand could be accomplished with the use of a simple app that would estimate the time to begin the charging cycle so that it finishes charging just before the car is needed the next day. Since different people have different schedules and needs, by delaying the onset of charging appropriately, not everyone will be charging at the same time, and therefore the peak in demand would be smoothed out.

There are substantial government funds earmarked for charging infrastructure and creating that infrastructure in suitably strategic ways could make a big difference in supporting EV adoption and supporting the power grid.

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Minimizing electric vehicles’ impact on the grid

Photo, posted July 2, 2020, courtesy of Ivan Radic via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A New “Wonder Material” | Earth Wise

February 11, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Graphene is a form of carbon made of single-atom-thick layers. It has many remarkable properties and researchers around the world continue to investigate its use in multiple applications.

In 2019, a new material composed of single-atom-thick layers was produced for the first time. It is phosphorene nanoribbons or PNRs, which are ribbon-like strands of two-dimensional phosphorous. These materials are tiny ribbons that can be a single atomic layer thick and less than 100 atoms wide but millions of atoms long. They are comparable in aspect ratio to the cables that span the Golden Gate Bridge. Theoretical studies have predicted how PNR properties could benefit all sorts of devices, including batteries, biomedical sensors, thermoelectric devices, nanoelectronics, and quantum computers.

As an example, nanoribbons have great potential to create faster-charging batteries because they can hold more ions than can be stored in conventional battery materials.

Recently, for the first time, a team of researchers led by Imperial College London and University College London researchers has used PNRs to significantly improve the efficiency of a device. The device is a new kind of solar cell, and it represents the first demonstration that this new wonder material might actually live up to its hype.

The researchers incorporated PNRs into solar cells made from perovskites. The resultant devices had an efficiency above 21%, which is comparable to traditional silicon solar cells. Apart from the measured results, the team was able to experimentally verify the mechanism by which the PNRs enhanced the improved efficiency.

Further studies using PNRs in devices will allow researchers to discover more mechanisms for how they can improve performance.

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‘Wonder material’ phosphorene nanoribbons live up to hype in first demonstration

Photo, posted October 6, 2010, courtesy of Alexander AlUS / CORE-Materials via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wireless EV Charging | Earth Wise

November 10, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Michigan, historically the focus of the American auto industry, has announced a new initiative to develop the nation’s first wireless charging infrastructure on a public road. The Inductive Vehicle Charging Pilot is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Office of Future Mobility and Electrification.

The idea is to deploy an electrified roadway system that allows electric buses, shuttles, and vehicles to charge while driving, allowing them to operate continuously without stopping to charge. In principle, such electrified roadways have the potential to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and turn public streets into safe and sustainable shared energy platforms. This is especially valuable for drivers who might not have easy access to conventional charging facilities.

The pilot program is seeking proposals to design, fund, evaluate, iterate, test, and implement an inductive charging system along a one-mile stretch of state-operated roadway in Michigan.

The basic concept is to embed coils in a road that will convey electricity to cars outfitted with coils of their own. It is much like the wireless charging pads used to power up smartphones. Indiana is pursuing a similar project in the next couple of years.

Clearly driving through a one mile stretch of roadway for minute or two is not going to provide a whole lot of energy by whatever coupling mechanism is used. Scaling up the technology represents a significant challenge at the very least. How practical such a scheme is from both a technology and an economic perspective remains to be seen. In any case, it is interesting to see that states are looking at various alternatives for providing access to charging infrastructure to the growing population of electrified vehicles.

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Governor Whitmer Announces Initiative for Nation-Leading Wireless EV Charging Infrastructure in Michigan

Photo, posted September 6, 2020, courtesy of Chris Yarzab via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Green Bills Pass In New York | Earth Wise

August 19, 2020 By EarthWise 3 Comments

In late July, the two houses of the New York legislature passed a number of environmental bills covering a wide range of topics.

These included a bill to add protected status for streams that support fisheries and non-contact recreation. A second bill bans the use of PFAS in food packaging. A third bill classifies all wastes resulting from oil and gas exploration, development, extraction or production as hazardous waste, closing a previous loophole in the law.

A fourth bill requires water works corporations with more than 1,000 service connections to post their annual water supply statements online, thereby providing transparency and openness to water quality data. A fifth bill expands protections for endangered species to protect them from environmental rollbacks by the federal government.

A sixth bill prohibits non-electric vehicles from parking in spaces designated for electric vehicle charging, thereby establishing penalties for this practice that is often done for spite. A seventh bill bans the use of glyphosate – the herbicide found in Roundup and other products – on state property.

An eighth bill reduces the use of road salt in the Adirondacks. A ninth bill requires supermarkets to make good faith efforts to donate edible excess food to qualifying entities such as food pantries, food banks, or similar entities. A tenth bill bans certain uses of trichloroethylene or TCE, including as a vapor degreaser, an intermediate chemical to produce other chemicals, a refrigerant, or an extraction solvent.

When signed by the governor, these ten pieces of legislation will help protect New York’s environment, water, and health. It was a busy session for green legislation.

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Several Green Bills Pass in State Legislature

Photo, posted September 12, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Way To Remove CO2 From The Air

December 13, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Researchers at MIT have developed a new way of removing carbon dioxide from a stream of air that could be a powerful tool in the battle against climate change. The new system can pull carbon dioxide out of almost any concentration level of the gas, even including the roughly 400 parts per million level currently found in the atmosphere.

The technique is described in a new paper in the journal Energy and Environmental Science and is based on passing air through a stack of electrochemical plates. The device is essentially a large battery that absorbs carbon dioxide from the air passing over its electrodes as it is being charged up, and then releases the gas as it is being discharged.

To use it, the device would simply alternate between charging and discharging. Fresh air or some other feed gas would be blown through the system during the charging cycle and then pure, concentrated carbon dioxide would be blown out during discharging.

The specialized battery uses electrodes coated with a compound called polyanthraquinone, which is composited with carbon nanotubes. These unique electrodes have a binary affinity to carbon dioxide, which means that they either strongly want to capture carbon dioxide or not at all, depending upon whether the device is charging or discharging.

Carbon dioxide is important in many industries such as soft drinks and greenhouse agriculture. With this device, the stuff could literally be pulled out of the air. And, of course, in power plants where exhaust gas is dumped into the air, these novel electrochemical cells could be used to prevent the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. At the right price, this could be a game changer.

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MIT engineers develop a new way to remove carbon dioxide from air

Photo, posted August 9, 2007, courtesy of William Clifford via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Energy Vault

May 28, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A potentially transformative utility-scale energy storage technology has won a 2019 “World Changing Idea” award from Fast Company magazine. Known as the Energy Vault, the technology seeks to be the successor to the granddaddy of grid energy storage: pumped hydro.

Shifting water between higher and lower reservoirs is still basis of the vast majority of global grid storage capacity. But it is limited both by its unique location needs and by environmental regulations.

A start-up company also called Energy Vault and based in both Switzerland and Southern California has come up with an extremely creative grid storage concept. The technology consists of a six-armed crane that stacks huge concrete blocks using a currently available source of cheap and abundant grid electricity, and then drops them down to generate electricity when needed.

The system is said to operate at about 90% efficiency and can deliver long-duration storage at half the prevailing price on the market today.

A full-scale Energy Vault plant, called an Evie, would look like a 35-story crane with six arms, surrounded by thousands of manmade concrete blocks, weighing nearly 40 tons each. When charging, the plant will stack the blocks around itself higher and higher in a Babel-like tower. To discharge, the cranes drop the blocks down, generating power from the speedy descent. This configuration can deliver 4 megawatts of power and store about 35 megawatt-hours of energy.

There isn’t even a factory needed. The company would deliver a crane from a manufacturer. The crane will then assemble the blocks onsite using recycled concrete. Operation is then fully automated. The system is expected to run for 30 or 40 years.

So far there is only a one-seventh scale demo unit in Switzerland. But this is a very intriguing idea.

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