Energy storage is an increasingly large problem with renewable energy . Energy Vault wants to solve it by storing extra energy as potential energy in concrete blocks. The company recently received a major investment from Japanese holding company SoftBank. That money will allow Energy Vault to build its first full-scale prototypes. In August 2019, the Japanese multinational holding firm SoftBank invested $110 million in Swiss company Energy Vault . It was a major boon for the company, which has a somewhat unique take on renewables: It stores potential energy through the use of stacked concrete blocks. Energy Vault will use the investment to build its first two full-scale models in Italy and India. Energy Vault is only two years old, but has earned its investment through growing interest in energy storage. As renewables rise in use and their prices drop , energy storage is becoming increasingly crucial. Left to their own devices, energy sources like solar panels or wind turbines don’t run forever; solar panels can only produce electricity when the sun’s out, for example, while wind turbines only turn when there’s wind. Enter storage methods like Energy Vault. When solar panels in a field in Rome, for example, […]
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