The US vitality storage trade has been using the coattails of wind and solar energy, and issues are about to get fascinating. Pumped hydropower continues to dominate the storage area by a large margin, however lithium-ion batteries are making inroads and new applied sciences are additionally creeping in. Oddly sufficient, Texas is entrance and heart within the new exercise regardless of persistent makes an attempt by Republican workplace holders within the state to tilt the scales in favor of fossil vitality.
Jupiter Energy: The Sleeping Power Storage Big Awakens
The vitality storage agency Jupiter Energy is new to the CleanTechnica radar, however it’s a pressure to be reckoned with. By way of Texas vitality coverage, Jupiter — which has headquarters in Texas and Illinois — stands out due to its “highly effective companion” relationship with the main international funding agency BlackRock, which has turn into a specific goal of a multi-state, organized push towards renewable vitality investing.
Texas officers are amongst these selecting on BlackRock for its promotion of decarbonization. Nonetheless, renewable vitality funding is occurring proper in their very own backyards.
“Backed by BlackRock’s Diversified Infrastructure enterprise, Jupiter Energy has a strategic and established portfolio of utility-scale vitality storage tasks working or in building within the U.S., with a number one pipeline of over 11,000 MW in energetic growth,” Jupiter explains.
That massive portfolio now features a new partnership with the Swiss startup Power Vault for a 100 megawatt battery-type storage system at a Jupiter Energy facility positioned close to Fort Stockton, Texas, in addition to one other 10-megawatt system in California.
The cope with Power Vault additionally caught our eye as a result of the Swiss firm’s lead product is a cutting-edge, bizarre-looking, gravity-based vitality storage know-how. Nevertheless, earlier than you get excited, don’t get too excited. Jupiter makes a speciality of battery vitality storage techniques. The deal entails battery-type vitality storage and a source-agnostic vitality administration platform that Power Vault launched final 12 months, not the gravity system.
Nonetheless, a hookup between the 2 firms raises the chance {that a} gravity-based system may very well be within the works, so hold your eyes open for that.
Repurposing Outdated Wells For New Storage
If Power Vault’s gravity-base system ever will get to Texas, it could have already got some firm. The US startup Renewell, which has places of work in Texas and California, is advertising a gravity-based vitality storage system that may be retrofitted into idle oil and gasoline wells.
Referred to as Gravity Properly, the system doubles as an deserted well-sealing and monitoring operation.
“In a perfect world idle wells wouldn’t be plugged and deserted, they might be plugged and monitored,” explains Renewell. “Not solely is a Gravity Properly plugged above the depleted reservoir, there’s additionally a set of sensors on every properly making certain an unprecedented degree of perception into its standing.”
Along with repurposing previous wells as vitality storage websites, the Gravity Properly system repurposes oilfield tubing to manufacture the lengthy, cylindrical weights that type the center of the system.
“Inactive oil and gasoline wells are a perfect host for gravity vitality storage as a consequence of their depth, costly plug and abandonment (P&A), pre-existing electrical infrastructure, and present emissions,” the corporate explains.
“As much as 40% of idle wells have been discovered to leak methane. Sealing the properly throughout set up stops these emissions, making a Gravity Properly the one vitality storage know-how with instantly net-negative lifecycle GHG emissions,” they add.
California seems to first in line for commercialization of the brand new know-how. The startup beforehand examined a Gravity Properly prototype in Texas again in 2021, and the existence of a Texas workplace means that the Lone Star State may very well be subsequent.
Air Batteries Are Really A Factor
Compressed air know-how is one other vitality storage system that has crossed the CleanTechnica radar, and Texas is within the working. Again in 2017, we took be aware of the Texas startup Apex-CAES when it introduced that it could carry compressed air storage again to the US after a 40-year drought. The corporate is presently engaged on a 317-megawatt facility in Anderson County.
Extra lately, alternatives for compressed air growth in Texas have caught the attention of the fast-growing Irish firm Corre Power.
Corre actually doesn’t appear postpone by the anti-ESG (surroundings, social, governance) rhetoric emanating from Texas officers. In July, the corporate introduced plans to amass a 280-megawatt compressed air venture in West Texas, calling it their first “strategic entry into high-growth US market with its supportive regulatory surroundings.”
The deal hooks Corre up with the Texas-based vitality storage agency Contour Power, which is able to proceed to work on the venture till completion.
As for that factor a few “supportive regulatory surroundings,” that’s not precisely a ringing endorsement of Texas vitality coverage. It’s extra of a shoutout to Democratic lawmakers in Washington, DC, who handed the 2022 Inflation Discount Act with precisely zero assist from Republican representatives in Congress.
“The Texas venture is supported by a optimistic financial surroundings, together with the Inflation Discount Act and prolonged Funding Tax Credit score supplied by the US authorities, representing a lovely entry level into the US marketplace for Corre Power,” the corporate explains.
Inexperienced Hydrogen Power Storage, Of Course
Contour Power makes a speciality of compressed air techniques that contain heating the air earlier than passing it via a turbine to generate electrical energy. The heating a part of the equation usually entails pure gasoline, so the system relies upon partly on fossil vitality. Nevertheless, Contour factors out that the air-plus-gas combo entails much less greenhouse gasoline emissions than gas-only generators.
Contour means that hydrogen may be used for heating, and that brings up the position of Texas within the inexperienced hydrogen market. Inexperienced hydrogen features as a renewable vitality storage platform when produced from water with electrolysis techniques powered by wind, photo voltaic, and different renewables (see extra CleanTechnica protection right here).
Inexperienced hydrogen tasks have been popping up all around the US and elsewhere, however since the whole lot is greater in Texas, it’s no shock to see a supersized inexperienced hydrogen facility heading to Duval County, making the most of storage capability within the Piedras Pintas Salt Dome.
The venture, dubbed Hydrogen Metropolis, comes beneath the umbrella of the Texas-based agency Inexperienced Hydrogen Worldwide.
“Hydrogen Metropolis, Texas can be an built-in inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing, storage, and transport hub rising to 60GW in dimension and producing over 3 billion kilograms of inexperienced hydrogen per 12 months,” GHI enthuses. “The venture can be powered by 60GW of behind the meter photo voltaic and wind energy with further renewable vitality drawn from the ERCOT grid during times of low costs.”
“Entry to salt storage is essential to the scaling-up of inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing because it permits for optimum utilization of electrolysers and serves as a buffer between variable wind and photo voltaic manufacturing and closing supply of inexperienced hydrogen to clients,” they add.
There’s lots extra the place that got here from. Researchers on the College of Texas have already begun to make a broad case for deploying Texas’s salt cavern assets for inexperienced hydrogen storage, geothermal tasks, and different clear applied sciences.
For extra (rather more) CleanTechnica protection of the goings-on in Texas, go right here.
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Picture: Gravity-based vitality storage system from Power Vault (courtesy of Power Vault through businesswire.com).
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