Here is another discussion of the sketchy Energy Vault concept and some significant reservations by one author ....
Aside from the massive capital costs for large robust steel buildings, as a mechanical engineer, I have reservations about the lifetimes of huge steel cables in
CONTINUOUS SERVICE, the brake systems to keep blocks from smashing to the bottom of the pits, how about the electrical lifetimes of motor/generators continuously switching on and of and synching with the grid?
These massive buildings must be located near the wind-turbines ...
Yes, I am a sick old man with a bad attitude and a jaundiced eye about anything new.... (Especially anything lauded by prancing MBAs, investment bankers and probable worshipers of Satan)
Q: But where are the detailed studies by independent and reputable research institutions ?....
A: There ARE NONE !!
Where is the pilot plant that has been running a couple of years and that has achieved an unbelievable round-trip efficiency (RTE) of 85 to 90% ?
How can they even make that claim without hard data from a long-running research from a running plant ?
Remember, this is the PRIMARY ADVANTAGE of this system over all other energy storage systems ....
This is an Investor's report from a preliminary facility built in Tincio Switzerland
Slide #25 states that this first facility has a measured "round-trip efficiency" ....
OF ONLY 75%
.... but MBA/PMI management expects that to increase to 90% somehow very shortly !!!
.... (
the newly hired LEGO engineers are working on that issue as we speak ...)
.... and when a cable breaks, needs repair or a motor/generator bearing set must be replaced, that will decrease the efficiency of the facility also !!!
BS is BS ... always has been and always will be
MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer