By Abhishek Bhardwaj , Interesting Engineering.  Excerpt: Two firms, Energy Vault, and Carbosulcis, have announced a collaboration to build a 100-megawatt hybrid gravity energy storage project to accelerate the carbon-free technology hub at Italy’s largest former coal mining site in Sardinia. ...The collaboration is to develop a 100MW Hybrid Gravity Energy Storage System, a solution designed by Energy Vault for underground mines, pairing their modular gravity storage and batteries. According to a press release by Energy Vault, the energy storage solution will be deployed 1640 feet (500 meters) deep mine shafts. ...According to the press release by Energy Vault, the project is essential for the Sardinia government’s targeted conversion of the coal mine to a carbon free technology hub. ...The solution’s design will be optimized to fully benefit from the mine shaft’s area and location, especially the 1640 feet depth at which it is planned to be constructed....  Full article ...

By Amy Gunia, CNN.  Excerpt: One of the biggest hurdles to a power grid dominated by clean energy is the intermittency of some renewable sources. Sometimes clouds roll in when solar energy is needed, or the wind stops blowing, and turbines can’t generate power. Other times, the sun and wind produce more electricity than is required. ...Enter battery skyscrapers. At  the end of May , Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the architecture and engineering firm behind some of the world’s tallest buildings, announced a partnership with the energy storage company Energy Vault to develop new gravity energy storage solutions. That includes a design for a skyscraper that would use a motor powered by electricity from the grid to elevate giant blocks when energy demand is low. These blocks would store the electricity as “potential” energy. When there is demand, the blocks   would be lowered, releasing the energy, which would be converted into electricity. ...SOM and Energy Vault’s s...