System design and economic performance of gravity energy storage

High share of intermittent renewable energy sources disrupts the reliability and the proper operation of the electric grid. Power systems are now on the starting point of a new transformation where high cost requirements have been imposed to secure the supply of energy. Energy storage technologies are considered as one of the solutions for stabilizing the electric grid. Currently, there are only a limited number of storage options as several technologies are at very early stage of development. This paper introduces a storage alternative similar to pumped hydro system; known as gravity energy storage. This system stores electricity in the form of gravitational potential energy. This work presents an approach to size gravity storage technically and economically. It performs an economic analysis to determine the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for this technology, and then compares it to other storage alternatives. The obtained results demonstrate that gravity storage provide sound operating and economic characteristics compared to other storage technologies. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.