Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The Softbank Vision Fund, the world’s largest venture capital provider for technology companies, has invested $110 million in the Swiss energy storage startup Energy Vault. The Lugano-based company launched in November 2018 uses massive brick towers to store energy from renewable sources. It wants to use the fresh capital to deploy its technology globally by building commercial-scale projects on four continents. The Japanese Softbank Group behind the Vision Fund will become a customer of Energy Vault.
Energy Vault storage tower with photovoltaic plant and wind turbines
Similar to pumped hydro plants
The revolutionary Swiss storage system consists of a tower of heavy bricks with a crane in the center; machine vision and smart algorithms allow for automatic operation. When close by wind turbines or solar plants produce excess energy, the crane stacks up the huge bricks with a weight of 35 tons each.
This process is reversed when demand from the grid exceeds the amount of electricity the renewable source is producing. Then, the crane grabs bricks and lets them float to the ground by the force of gravity, thereby producing electricity. The software takes into account factors like demand volatility, grid stability, and weather.
The system did not have to be developed from scratch because it is based on the same physics and mechanical engineering used by pumped hydro plants. This type of energy storage system is wide-spread in Switzerland. But Energy Vault replaces the water with custom-made composite bricks.
Pilot tower in Switzerland
It is the first investment of the Softbank Vision Fund into the energy sector. Analysts see two possible reasons behind it: First, Softbank founder Masayoshi Son supports the spread of renewable energy. Some Softbank Group companies are building and operating solar power plants. Second, the Swiss system utilizes machine learning which is a common feature of many investments of the Vision Fund.
Energy Vault already operates a pilot tower in Switzerland on a one-quarter-scale since last year. Also, it will be demonstrating its first 35 megawatt-hours storage tower in the north of Italy ready by the end of this year. The Swiss startup is also building a tower for the Tata Power company with a peak power delivery of 4 MW.
Storage as bottleneck
The electricity from renewable sources fluctuates and does often not match the demand from the grid. Hence, the power needs to be stored and fed into the network to compensate for the fluctuations. Current systems like lithium-ion batteries or pumped hydro storage are either expensive or cannot be constructed everywhere.
The Swiss startup claims that its energy tower works cost-efficient. Instead of using concrete as a material, the giant bricks can be produced from local soil. It is first compressed and then sealed with a particular chemical of the global cement giant Cemex. Its venture arm participated in a previous funding round, and its research subsidiary in Switzerland supports Energy Vault.
“The Vision Fund shares our passion for combatting climate change through innovation in energy storage technologies,” said Robert Piconi, CEO and co-founder of the Swiss startup. “Energy Vault solves a long-standing and complex problem of how to store renewable energy at scale,” added Akshay Naheta, Managing Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers. As part of the investment deal, one representative of the Softbank Vision Fund joins the Energy Vault board of directors.
Text: Martin Fritz for SCCIJ; Photo: © Energy Vault
