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Nuke writes:

A Californian company proposes using weighted electrically-driven rail vehicles on inclines to store energy. At times when the capacity of electricity supply exceeds demand the vehicles would be driven up inclined tracks, and when demand exceeds generation they are allowed to run down, generating electricity as they fall.

This link includes a video that shows a prototype vehicle (which appears to be built on a conventional locomotive chassis), an interview with a promoter, and an animation of a "farm" of these devices. There is a shortage of hard data, such as how much energy could be stored, for how long, and how steep the tracks are, etc., but a quick calculation shows that some thousands of these vehicles would be required for them to be useful. The control panel for this prototype has a power dial that appears to go up to only 20 kW. The promoter in the interview focuses instead on how the construction material can be recycled at end of life.

An Anonymous Coward adds:

Motherboard story from 2016 when Advanced Rail Energy Storage (ARES) got approval to build a 50 MW facility in Nevada.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

1. "Californian company" - https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/
2. "This link" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-44549962/surplus-energy-rides-the-gravity-train
3. "Motherboard story from 2016 when Advanced Rail Energy Storage (ARES) got approval to build a 50 MW facility in Nevada" - https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z43mmy/this-grid-scale-battery-is-based-on-train-cars-and-good-old-gravity
4. "Original Submission #1" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=27663
5. "Original Submission #2" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=27668

printed from SoylentNews, "Gravity Train" Energy Storage Proposal on 2025-12-09 16:48:17