Gravitricity plans Czech gravity energy storage demo of 4 MW

Gravitricity plans to carry out the first full-scale installation of its underground gravity energy storage technology at a former mine in the coal-rich Moravian-Silesian region of the Czech Republic.

The Edinburgh-based company said in a statement on Wednesday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Czech state enterprise DIAMO as a commitment to seek EU funds for a 4-MW/2-MWh project at the Darkov deep mine near the city of Karvina. A separate MoU calls for VSB Technical University of Ostrava to share its specialist mining expertise for the purposes of the project.

Gravitricity’s process revolves around lowering and raising a single massive weight, suspended in a deep shaft by cables attached to winches. At times of excess electricity generation by, for example, wind turbines, the weight is winched to the top of the shaft and when required is lowered to produce energy and feed electricity back to the grid.

The company has a scale version of its technology deployed in Edinburgh. It estimates that the capacity of the full-scale project at the Darkov mine will be enough to power more than 16,000 homes.

DIAMO is the state enterprise tasked with mitigating the consequences of uranium ore and coal mining in the Czech Republic. In addition to the energy storage project, it intends to install a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant at the former mine and possibly initiate green hydrogen production there.

Furthermore, the site will accommodate an experimental greenhouse project called EDEN Silesia and managed by the Silesian University

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