The Italian start-up Energy Dome has launched the world’s first operational CO2 battery. The storage solution of the same name is being used, for the first time in Sardinia and is intended to promote the energy transition on the island.
Renewable energies make it challenging to access electricity capacities reliably. On sunny and windy days, solar and wind turbines generate more than enough electricity to meet demand. However, we need enough electricity even on cloudy and windless days. Batteries are the solution to the problem.
The demand for batteries and storage solutions has therefore skyrocketed in recent years. Energy storage is not only for electric cars. Private photovoltaic systems are also often worth buying for your own four walls. New concepts could change the storage of electricity in the future.
Energy Dome: First CO2 Battery Goes Into Operation
One of these concepts is the principle and how the CO₂ battery works by the Italian start-up Energy Dome. Originally a deployment from 2023 was planned. However, the company has already started the official operation of the first system in advance. The world’s first operational CO2 battery is in Sardinia.
There it should drive forward as an elementary component of the energy transition because the region wants to phase out fossil raw materials by 2025 and needs storage solutions for wind and solar systems.
Energy Dome’s facility is designed to pressurize excess energy from local facilities with stored CO2 and later retrieve it quickly and efficiently. The greenhouse gas could become an essential part of future energy storage systems.
Because CO2 can be condensed under pressure at ambient temperature and stored as a liquid, Energy Dome says the gas is ideal for storing energy cost-effectively in a closed-loop thermodynamic process. It also enables high-density energy storage. Shallow temperatures are not required.
CO2 Batteries Should Become Cheaper And More Efficient
Energy Dome has already secured several promising partnerships thanks to the revolutionary approach. Now that the technology is officially available, plants with capacities of up to 20 megawatts are to be built. The system already has a significant advantage compared to lithium-ion batteries.
Because no expensive raw materials such as rare piles of the earth are required during production, carbon dioxide is sufficiently available on our planet. It is, therefore, probably the better storage material for our energy. More systems are to follow in the coming years.
This should also reduce costs. Efficiency can then benefit from further research. Then we might see more and more such interesting-looking domes in this country.
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