Re:Tesla's giant battery saved $40M during its first year, r...
by simias on Thursday December 06, 2018 @11:50AM
(#18619667)
I always heard that gravity was very poor for energy storage because it's such a relatively week energy. I haven't done the math so I'm not outright dismissing the idea but your article states:
>A 120-meter (nearly 400-foot) tall, six-armed crane stands in the middle. In the discharged state, concrete cylinders weighing 35 metric tons each are neatly stacked around the crane far below the crane arms.[...]
>The system is “fully charged” when the crane has created a tower of concrete blocks around it. The total energy that can be stored in the tower is 20 megawatt-hours (MWh), enough to power 2,000 Swiss homes for a whole day.
That seems like a huge hassle for a relatively meager storage. You'd need more than 6 of these to match Tesla's giant battery. Sounds like it would be an eye-sore too, but that's always a bit subjective. Maintenance-wise it could be rather tricky too, the article mentions complex systems to lift the blocks.
>A 120-meter (nearly 400-foot) tall, six-armed crane stands in the middle. In the discharged state, concrete cylinders weighing 35 metric tons each are neatly stacked around the crane far below the crane arms.[...]
>The system is “fully charged” when the crane has created a tower of concrete blocks around it. The total energy that can be stored in the tower is 20 megawatt-hours (MWh), enough to power 2,000 Swiss homes for a whole day.
That seems like a huge hassle for a relatively meager storage. You'd need more than 6 of these to match Tesla's giant battery. Sounds like it would be an eye-sore too, but that's always a bit subjective. Maintenance-wise it could be rather tricky too, the article mentions complex systems to lift the blocks.