Good News Notes:
“Long duration energy storage has yet to make a significant dent in the global energy profile. To date, the only widespread form of storage technology that can last longer than a few hours is the century-old “water battery,” in the form of hydropower reservoirs and their cousins, pumped hydro reservoirs.
On the plus side, hydropower dams and pumped storage systems already sport transmission infrastructure. Developers are eyeballing them for additional green power by adding floating solar arrays. However, hydropower facilities are site-specific, they disrupt habitats, and they are increasingly vulnerable to climate impacts.
The prospects for a whole new fleet of hydropower facilities around the globe are slim. What the world needs is modern technology that is more site-agnostic. That has been a tough row to hoe, but the Italian firm Energy Dome is among those who have spotted a way forward.
The Energy Dome CO2 Solution
Energy Dome is new to the CleanTechnica radar, but it caught the eye of Bloomberg NEF, which awarded the company a slot in the 2022 cohort of newly minted BNEF Pioneers, for delivering “round-the-clock zero-emissions power” with its new CO2 Battery.
BNEF Pioneers is in its 10th year of identifying “the most impactful and original technology innovations for advancing the low-carbon economy,” and Energy Dome is the first company to represent Italy in the competitive program.
The winning technology is a closed-loop CO2 system that hits the magic 4-hour ceiling for short term energy storage, and then charges past it for up to 24 hours.
As for cost, that’s the sticky wicket — or not, as the case may be. Lithium-ion battery arrays are currently the system of choice for utility scale energy storage. The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been tracking a downward trend in the cost of Li-ion arrays, based on a typical duration of 4 hours. Energy Dome estimates it can beat Li-ion on costs by a mile, delivering up to 6 times that duration at half the cost.
Long Duration Energy Storage With CO2: How Does It Work?
To ice the long duration energy storage cake, Energy Dome claims that its system is based on proven technologies with non-flammable, non-toxic materials, and that it maintains its performance level for 25 years and possibly longer.
“We believe the CO2 Battery will help significantly accelerate the clean energy transition by replacing baseload fossil fuels with fully dispatchable solar and wind energy,” enthuses Energy Dome’s founder and CEO Claudio Spadacini.
CleanTechnica has been taking a look at supercritical CO2 systems that leverage concentrating solar power, so it’s not a surprise to see the pesky molecule deployed in the service of decarbonization. For Energy Dome, it’s a perfect fit with long duration energy storage….”
View the whole story here: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/04/22/instant-long-duration-energy-storage-just-add-carbon-dioxide/