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| The crazy "building blocks" energy storage technology is about to land |
| Release time:2023-01-03 15:25:36| Viewed： |
The crazy "building blocks" energy storage technology is about to land?
Imagine such a "crazy" energy storage technology: drive the suspension tower with excess electric energy, build a tower with thousands of tons of bricks, and use the gravity of bricks to drive the generator connected to the suspension tower in case of power shortage, so as to realize power storage and discharge.
This kind of "building blocks" energy storage technology, which is based on the physics theory of junior high school and is just like a juvenile science fantasy, is about to be implemented.
On the evening of March 7, China Tianying (000035. SZ), an incineration power generation enterprise, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Jiangsu Nengying New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangsu Nengying"), would establish Atlas (Jiangsu) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Atlas") with other three parties, Exclusive development of gravity energy storage project construction and operation business based on EnergyVault gravity energy storage system ("GESS") technology.
It is understood that there is no commercial application case of EnergyVault's gravity energy storage technology in the world at present, and it is uncertain whether China Tianying will become the first person to successfully eat crabs.
"Moving bricks" for energy storage?
So, what is the gravity energy storage technology "GESS"?
According to the official website of EnergyVault, the company's main gravity energy storage solution is similar to the pumped storage solution in theory. It is mainly to use the specially made composite bricks to pull the power generation facilities through the physical lifting process to achieve power storage and discharge.
In addition, compared with other energy storage solutions with greater environmental constraints, EnergyVault's gravity energy storage solution is characterized by that the bricks used as energy storage units mainly use sand and gravel soil, fuel residues or fan blades and other waste parts in the project location.
How is the technical cooperation between China Tianying New Company and EnergyVault promoted?
It is reported that the technical authorization of China Tianying is mainly obtained by the company's holding overseas subsidiary Atlas Renewable LLC and Energy Vault signing a technical authorization agreement.
According to the announcement, Atlas Renewable LLC and EnergyVault signed a technology licensing agreement on January 31, 2022, allowing Atlas to directly and indirectly grant licenses in China, while the listed company China Tianying directly obtained licenses. The relevant license period is a 15 year agreement with three conditions attached. Atlas will pay EnergyVault a total of $50 million in licensing fees.
It is reported that the Atlas to be established by China Tianying this time is a joint venture of four companies. In addition to 50% of shares held by Jiangsu Nengying, wholly-owned by China Tianying, the actual controller couple of China Tianying, Yan Shengjun and Jiangsu Tianqin Investment Co., Ltd., controlled by Mao Hongju, will hold 10% of the shares. The related persons of China Tianying will hold 60% of the company's equity in total.
In addition, EnergyVault is suspected to hold 10% equity of Atlas through Atlas Renewable Inc., and also participated in the landing of gravity energy storage in China.
No commercialization case
According to the data, EnergyVault was awarded the Softbank Vision Venture Capital of 110 million in 2019, and was officially established in September 2020, and launched the first energy storage tower product EV1. In June 2021, EnergyVault was funded by Saudi Aramco Energy Venture Capital, and the company began to launch the SPAC listing plan.
In January 2022, China Tianying Announcement Company will invest 50 million dollars in EnergyVault through the overseas entity of Atlas Renewable LLC, which holds 51% of the equity.
On February 14, EnergyVault officially completed the SPAC listing process.
Perhaps it is because the concept of gravity energy storage is also very fashionable in American stocks - EnergyVault once rose from $8.96 to $18.57 after its listing, with a maximum increase of 107.25%.
However, when it comes to the specific business of the company, EnergyVault is weak.
In terms of products, the company has developed EVRC energy storage products that can be assembled with unit modules on the basis of the early storage tower EV1 products, and has built some project demonstration centers in Switzerland to graft with the local power grid for project tests. According to the data of the energy storage demonstration center provided on the official website of EnergyVault, the energy storage capacity of the energy storage module EVx and the elastic center EVRC is more than 10 MWh, meeting the elastic energy storage of the power grid for 2 to 12 hours.
However, these are not specific commercial projects.
In 2018, it was reported that Tata Power Company of India planned to purchase 35MWh of gravity energy storage from EnergyVault, with a peak power output of 4MW, and achieve 100% full power within 2.9 seconds of startup and millisecond response time. But there was no follow-up to the news.
In terms of financial statements, the prospectus of EnergyVault shows that the company had a total loss of $37.6 million as of December 2020, a loss of $24.2 million in 2020, a loss of $18.6 million as of the end of September 2021, and zero revenue. The company also said that it would continue to lose money in the foreseeable future, and even if it could earn income in the future, it could not guarantee that the company would achieve profits immediately.
A person from the primary market said in an interview: "Most of the enterprises backed by SPAC in the US stock market have no real business to use for benchmarking valuation. As long as there is a bright technical route, they will go to the stock market for crowdfunding, and ordinary investors generally will not contact such companies."
For China Tianying, whether it can achieve considerable revenue in the future and where the customer resources will come from in this uncertain field need to be solved.
On January 30 this year, EnergyVault signed a contract with China Tianying to build a 100MWh gravity energy storage demonstration project in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, which will be completed and put into commercial operation in 2022 to attract investment. EnergyVault will advance 25 million dollars for the construction of the project.
As for the establishment of Atlas, China Tianying Securities Department said, "The parent company of Atlas (Jiangsu Nengying) is mainly responsible for energy storage business, and China Tianying's energy storage is located there, and it has some energy storage business reserves before, which is not its first entry into the energy storage sector".
What is the economic benefit of gravity energy storage?
There are not many clear or unified views on the commercial prospects and economic benefits of gravity energy storage in the market.
Some experts pointed out that the commercial prospects of the current demonstration project of Tianying in China cannot be evaluated, but the feasibility depends on the implementation method and difficulty of the project scheme.
According to the data of Bloomberg New Energy Financial Report, the levelized cost of EnergyVault gravity storage technology is 60% of that of lithium ion battery (2021).
The 21st Century Economic News reporter found that under several common energy storage technology routes, the leveling cost of chemical energy storage (lithium battery, etc.) is 0.64 yuan to 1.26 yuan, while the cost of pumped storage is as low as 0.21 yuan to 0.25 yuan.
This means that the cost of EnergyVault gravity storage technology is between the two, but the requirement for geographical location is low.
Guotai Jun'an Securities believes that compared with lithium electricity and pumped storage, gravity energy storage technology is easier to expand and modularize, and will not produce harmful substances, or rely on compressed air and flywheel to bring potential safety hazards or fire risks.
For China Tianying, the main income source of the gravity energy storage project is project construction, which may not bear the operational responsibility and results.
According to China Tianying Securities Department, the construction period of a gravity energy storage project is about half a year. It is expected that whether the proposition of gravity storage can be realized will soon be known. |
