The start-up Energy Dome has developed a CO battery2 capable of using carbon dioxide to store wind and/or solar electricity. What, perhaps, to provide a concrete answer to the thorny question of the storage of renewable energies which remain intermittent.
The Italian company, located in Milan, sets out to conquer the United States after manufacturing the first CO battery2 of the planet in Europe. On the path to decarbonization, the start-up received a financial boost from the fund specializing in climate technologies, Elemental Excelerator. This will allow him to consider the deployment of an installation to store, in a sort of giant dome, CO2 in the form of gas in order to make it an electricity storage solution.
A dome to store energy
Energy Dome started operations in early 2020 before engaging in more extensive and comprehensive testing. These led the start-up to install its very first CO battery.2 in an industrial area in Sardinia and attaching it to an existing electricity connection, thus proving that the storage of renewable energies is not a pipe dream.
So how does this thermodynamic energy storage project come to life? The initial idea consists of storing carbon dioxide in a particularly imposing dome, in the form of gas, and then using it as an electricity storage solution. When charging, the battery feeds on CO2 at temperature and pressure close to the atmosphere. Then the gas is compressed into liquid form, and the heat generated during the compression process is stored.
For the next step, the one that generates and distributes electricity, the CO2 liquid is heated and reconverted into a gas that powers a turbine, which then produces energy. ” CO2 in gas form is then still contained, and the entire system is sealed », as the founder of the company, Claudio Spadacini, explained to our colleagues at Bloomberg last May.
The construction of the CO storage facility2 should start in 2024
This solution, which relies on steel, water and carbon dioxide, is more virtuous than others. Indeed, it does not depend on rare earths and metals such as lithium and cobalt, used for solid batteries of electric vehicles. ” This makes our technology geopolitically independent adds Claudio Spadacini.
Energy Dome could eventually be a solution for storing renewable energies. The energy they generate (notably solar) requires batteries, the production of which will raise questions.
At the end of September, the start-up entered into a partnership with Ørsted, a Danish giant that operates solar parks, but also wind farms, both offshore and onshore. Together, the two companies intend to build a CO storage complex2 with a capacity of 20 MW, the construction of which should start in the second half of 2024 in Europe.
Source : BusinessWire
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