Gravity Based Energy Storage System: A technological review

Abstract

As in today's world the penetration of renewable energy resources is increasing for electricity production, the problems due to unpredictable nature and variable output of these resources increases. Solution to these problem leads to the need of proper energy storage systems. There are various energy storage techniques that been developed and being using since long time e.g. battery storage, compressed air energy storage, pumped hydro storage, flywheel storage etc., but each technique has some limitations. This paper explores and gives an overview of recent gravity based energy storage techniques. This storage technique provides a pollution free, economical, long lifespan (over 40 years) and better round-trip efficiency of about 75-85% (depending upon technology used) and a solution for high capacity energy storage. Through this study it has been shown that this storage system has very high potential and can be used widely in future to store the renewable energy to overcome the problem of stabilization the electric grid.