In some areas, it’s now cheaper to build a new wind or solar farm
than to run an old coal plant. But when the sun isn’t shining and the
wind isn’t blowing, storing that power is still relatively expensive—and
solutions like batteries and dams create their own environmental chal-
lenges. Lugano, Switzerland–based Energy Vault uses gravity to solve
the problem through a new system that raises and lowers massive low-
cost bricks, relying on basic principles of energy conversion to store
and release energy along the way. “Now you can couple [solar power]
and low-cost wind with our storage and for the first time replace fossil
fuels with renewables 24 hours a day,” says cofounder and CEO Robert
Piconi. Indian utility Tata Power, Energy Vault’s first announced cus-
tomer, will be installing one of the towers later this year. —AP
Generating Power With Gravity
Energy Storage Tower ENERGY VAULT12LIFTING
BRICKSENERGY
RELEASE