{"id":114181,"date":"2020-10-11T16:10:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T23:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/prototype-gravity-based-energy-storage-system-begins-construction"},"modified":"2020-10-11T16:10:44","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T23:10:44","slug":"prototype-gravity-based-energy-storage-system-begins-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/prototype-gravity-based-energy-storage-system-begins-construction","title":{"rendered":"Prototype gravity-based energy storage system begins construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/prototype-gravity-based-energy-storage-system-begins-construction.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As renewable energy generation grows, so does the need for new storage methods that can be used at times when the Sun isn\u2019t shining or the wind isn\u2019t blowing. A Scottish company called Gravitricity has now broken ground on a demonstrator facility for a creative new system that stores energy in the form of \u201cgravity\u201d by lifting and dropping huge weights.<\/p>\n<p>If you coil a spring, you\u2019re loading it with potential energy, which is released when you let it go. Gravitricity works on the same basic principle, except in this case the springs are 500- to 5,000-tonne weights. When held aloft by powerful cables and winches, these weights store large amounts of potential energy. When that energy is needed, they can be lowered down a mineshaft to spin the winch and feed electricity into the grid.<\/p>\n<p>Gravitricity says that these units could have peak power outputs of between 1 and 20 MW, and function for up to 50 years with no loss of performance. Able to go from zero to full power in under a second, the system can quickly release its power payload in as little as 15 minutes or slow it down to last up to eight hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As renewable energy generation grows, so does the need for new storage methods that can be used at times when the Sun isn\u2019t shining or the wind isn\u2019t blowing. A Scottish company called Gravitricity has now broken ground on a demonstrator facility for a creative new system that stores energy in the form of \u201cgravity\u201d [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}