Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures Invests in Energy Vault

Energy Vault’s technology was inspired by pumped hydro plants that rely on the power of gravity and the movement of water to store and discharge electricity. The company’s solution is based on the same fundamentals of physics and mechanical engineering used in those plants, but replaces water with custom-made composite blocks. The blocks are combined with Energy Vault’s proprietary system design and machine vision, AI-enabled software to operate a specially designed crane which uses proprietary technology to autonomously orchestrate the lifting and lowering of the blocks, thus storing the potential energy at height and then discharging electricity as the blocks are lowered and generating electricity.

“Our mission at SAEV is to invest in companies developing technologies with strategic importance to Aramco. Energy Vault’s innovative energy storage technology has unique environmental and economic benefits. We are excited to help Energy Vault further accelerate the global deployment of its technology,” said Mahdi Aladel, CEO of Aramco Ventures.

“Energy Vault has made rapid and meaningful progress over the last 12-18 months as we completed the first commercial scale deployment of our technology and we are pleased to have SAEV’s support as a strategic partner,” said Robert Piconi, CEO and Co-Founder, Energy Vault.

Energy Vault's first 5MW / 35MWh commercial scale system achieved mechanical completion in July 2020, concurrent with its connection to the Swiss national utility grid. The system has since been utilized by Energy Vault customers around the world for direct application testing and ancillary services protocols.

New product platform

Over the last two years, Energy Vault has worked closely with the largest utility and energy companies in the world to further optimize its energy storage technology platform to be more flexible and address both higher power and variable duration needs. The result is the new EVx product platform.

EVx introduces a highly scalable and modular architecture that can be built out in 10MWh increments that can scale to multi-GW-hour storage capacity. Importantly, the new platform is 40 percent lower in height and utilizes the same composite block weights that can be made from waste and remediation material for beneficial re-use, such as coal combustion residuals (coal ash), fiberglass from de-commissioned wind turbine blades and waste tailings from mining processes. According to Energy Vaults’s press release the result is unprecedented economics that are significantly lower than any other energy storage technology on a Levelized Cost of Storage basis.

Energy Vault’s energy storage system is ideal for companies in many industrial verticals that have 24/7 power needs and are making a transition to clean energy. Other regional examples include desalination plants, which require around the clock industrial power to reliably and economically deliver clean drinking water.