December 1, 2022: Mechanical energy storage company Quidnet Energy is to receive $10 million in US federal funding to commercialize its technology, the company announced on November 29.
Quidnet said the funding from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) was part of the ARPA-E ‘seeding critical advances for leading energy technologies with untapped potential’ program, which provides additional funding to projects that have previously been earmarked as being feasible for widespread deployment and commercialization.
The funding will help the company scale up Quidnet’s pilot geomechanical pumped storage technology to a 1MW/10MWh commercial system that will provide San Antonio-based CPS Energy — the largest municipal utility in the US — with 10-plus hours long-duration energy storage.
Houston-based Quidnet uses excess renewable energy to store water beneath the ground under pressure.
The company says that when renewable energy is not available, this pressurized water can be used to power hydroelectric turbines, producing electricity to support the grid “at a fraction of the cost of lithium ion batteries and for much longer durations”.
The company is a mechanical energy storage founder of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council, whose formation was announced in November 2021.
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1 – When electricity is abundant, it is used to pump water from a pond down a well and into a body of rock.
2 – The well is closed, keeping the energy stored under pressure between rock layers for as long as needed.
3 – When electricity is needed, the well is opened to let the pressurized water pass through a turbine to generate electricity, and return to the pond ready for the next cycle.