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Promising results from renewable energy storage project
The first phase of a renewable energy storage project shows that a full scale plant will have very high energy efficiency
Two engineers from southern Jutland, Asger Gramkow and Jan Olsen, have successfully carried out the first phase of a project concerning storage of renewable energy, reports regional newspaper Jyske Vestkysten and Energy-supply.dk. The test of the technology was carried out in a hall, and the first results were very uplifting, says Jan Olsen:
"The first tests showed that it is practically possible to carry this out. It was said that we would lose 30-40 percent of the energy, but the tests showed that in a full scale plant, we will only lose around 0.5 percent."
The idea is to place a giant balloon underground and put millions of tons of soil on top of it. Electricity from for example wind turbines is then used to pump water into the balloon which lifts the soil. When energy is needed, the water in the balloon is released and the many tons of soil press the water through turbines which generate electricity.
"The efficiency is as high as in the elevated storage reservoirs which have shown their usefulness for decades in countries with mountains," says Jan Olsen.
The pair need DKK 4-6 million in funding for the next phase of the project, which is to install a prototype in a clay pit, and hope that the owner of the overall gas and electricity infrastructure Energinet.dk, which provided funding for the first phase, will support them.
