The world's first EVx gravity energy storage system begins operation in China

Energy Vault, a provider of gravity energy storage solutions, announced that the world’s first grid-scale gravity energy storage system, EVx, has entered the first phase of commissioning in Jiangsu Province, China.

The 25MW/100MWh EVx gravity energy storage system has been developed alongside a wind farm and China State Grid interconnection site, boosting and balancing the grid through the storage and delivery of renewable energy.

“We are pleased to share with our partners Atlas Renewable and China Tianying our continued progress and important milestone in the world’s first EVx gravity energy storage system commissioning event,” said Robert Piconi, Chairman and CEO of Energy Vault.

“While this is a significant milestone, our work in China has only just begun, as multiple GWh of gravity storage has recently been announced, including a project announced in 2022 to support China’s Zero Carbon Campus initiative, which will include Energy Vault gravity storage technology. We look forward to sharing more information on this first EVx deployment, as well as future gravity technologies we plan to deploy around the world as we see a growing demand for long-duration energy storage.”

Energy Vault said that while commissioning of the power electronics and new ultra-efficient belt-lift system began in June, the new EVx system is expected to be fully connected to the local grid in the fourth quarter, making the EVx the world’s first commercial, utility-scale, non-pumped hydro gravity energy storage system.

The new EVx system builds on the round trip efficiency (RTE) results of over 75% for the first 5MW EV1 tower, which was connected to the grid in Switzerland in mid-2020, with improvements in efficiency chain design expected to achieve an RTE of over 80%.

Energy Vault claims that the new gravity system is the leader in energy storage efficiency compared to all other forms of mechanical, thermodynamic processes, compressed air or flow battery systems.

Eric Fang, CEO of Atlas Renewable, said the milestone would not have been possible without the unprecedented collaboration between the collective teams of China and the United States as the world's two largest economies join forces to effectively address climate change.

“This first deployment of Energy Vaults EVx technology will serve as a model for global decarbonization technology partnerships, and we are already undertaking multi-GWh deployments of Energy Vaults gravity technology in China to support and ideally accelerate China’s ongoing 30-60 carbon neutrality plan,” Fang added.

Energy Vault and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG) recently announced a partnership to deploy and operate a utility-scale battery-and-green hydrogen long-duration energy storage system (BH-ESS) with at least 293MWh of dispatchable carbon-free energy.

(Source: Energy Vault Global Energy Storage Network, New Energy Network Comprehensive)