People don’t understand the grid energy storage market. Some think it’s only about storing as much energy as possible over as much time as possible. That’s not the full picture. Response time and ability to handle several cycles a day is also very important for many grid energy storage applications.
The stacking of heavy blocks you mention is actually a very decent idea. No, it’s not going to compete with pumped hydro for seasonal storage. But that was never the point. It’s about shifting load a few hours a couple of times every day. Perhaps with some spare capacity to help with a day or two with less power.
We need both solutions. Pumped hydro is not that great for cycling often and rapid response and it’s much harder to find good sites to build it. Big water reservoirs are extremely damaging to the environment. They obviously destroy all land based life on the land they claim, and the constant cycling up and down of the water lever means the conditions for life in the water is atrocious as well.
A fun fact is that for hydro power plants it’s becoming viable to install battery energy storage on site. Wouldn’t think that makes sense would you? By putting some of the power regulation loads on the battery they can run the hydro power plant production more evenly, reducing pressure variations that causes more wear and tear, which increases long term maintenance costs.
Don’t watch those YouTube “debunkers” for insight into these kinds of topic. They rarely do more than 10 min of research. (I know one of them did a video on Energy Vault that always gets shared in these conversations, despite the fact that there’s not a single valid point in the video)
Many hydroelectric plants with a reservoir are already energy storage systems. They can adjust their power output up and down. They can, for short periods, drain the reservoir faster than it is being filled. The seasonal patterns of rainfall, and energy demand, influence how much power a plant can output in terms of peak and average, both short and long-term.
At Niagara Falls, the falls can be diverted through the plants, nearly shutting the falls off. It isn't normally done, for both ecological and sightseeing reasons, but when power was needed after the 2003 blackout, the falls were reduced to about 15% flow: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-the-power-...
The stacking of heavy blocks you mention is actually a very decent idea. No, it’s not going to compete with pumped hydro for seasonal storage. But that was never the point. It’s about shifting load a few hours a couple of times every day. Perhaps with some spare capacity to help with a day or two with less power.
We need both solutions. Pumped hydro is not that great for cycling often and rapid response and it’s much harder to find good sites to build it. Big water reservoirs are extremely damaging to the environment. They obviously destroy all land based life on the land they claim, and the constant cycling up and down of the water lever means the conditions for life in the water is atrocious as well.
A fun fact is that for hydro power plants it’s becoming viable to install battery energy storage on site. Wouldn’t think that makes sense would you? By putting some of the power regulation loads on the battery they can run the hydro power plant production more evenly, reducing pressure variations that causes more wear and tear, which increases long term maintenance costs.
Don’t watch those YouTube “debunkers” for insight into these kinds of topic. They rarely do more than 10 min of research. (I know one of them did a video on Energy Vault that always gets shared in these conversations, despite the fact that there’s not a single valid point in the video)