Dutch start-up Ocean Grazer has made a splash at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2022), launching its Ocean Battery, an “infinitely scalable” energy storage system that sits on the seafloor alongside an offshore wind farm.
In what could legitimately be called a potential game-changer for renewable energy generation, Ocean Grazer describes the new Ocean Battery storage system as a “pumped hydro system in a box” which provides scalable energy storage up to gigawatt-hour scale and uses existing technologies and understanding.
The Ocean Battery uses technology that has been in use at hydroelectric dams for over a century, storing energy by pumping water from the rigid reservoirs into flexible bladders on the seabed.
The energy is thus stored as potential energy in the form of water under high pressure. When power demand requires, stored water flows back from the flexible bladders to the low pressure rigid reservoirs, driving multiple hydroelectric turbines to generate the necessary electricity.
Boasting a long lifetime in the span of decades and a round-trip efficiency of up to 80%, along with eliminating the need for any rare earth materials and relying instead on decades-old and proven technologies, the Ocean Battery is one of the most ecologically friendly and sustainable storage systems going.
The company behind the Ocean Battery, Ocean Grazer, has been spun out from the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, and are currently developing the first commercial Ocean Battery demonstrator.
Ocean Grazer describe themselves as “the only company that provides a reliable, affordable and eco-friendly energy storage system that provides a flexible and modular solution for offshore and inshore energy storage at gigawatt-hour scale.”
As with all new technologies, it will be a matter of time as to whether it catches on and is able to live up to its significant potential, but given its relative simplicity and the increasing development of offshore wind farms around the planet, one hopes that offshore wind developers around the world will immediately begin planning to incorporate Ocean Battery systems into their offshore wind farms.
