Charlie Blair, Gravitricity – Episode 37

What’s it all about? At Hyperion we love all things energy storage, and we’re always following new companies and technologies that can and will enable the energy transition. I recently met the team from Gravitricity at a trade show I was speaking at, and liked the look of their solution, anything that uses old and established technologies for new and innovative solutions is good as far as we’re concerned, so we asked their MD Charlie Blair to share more. About our guest Charlie joined Gravitricity as a founder shareholder in 2015, having worked with co-founders Peter Fraenkel and Martin Wright while in the Innovation Team at the Carbon Trust. The team has grown since then and he’s been instrumental in developing the strategic relationships with manufacturing partners that will allow the technology to get to market fast. Gravitricity is currently building at 250Kw, 50 tonne, Concept Demonstrator in Leith, Edinburgh. Charlie has a Geography degree from Durham University and an Energy Systems MSc from Imperial College. He was elected a Fellow of the Energy Institute in 2019. Gravitricity is an energy technology company based in Edinburgh developing groundbreaking underground storage. Grid-scale electricity storage spend is projected to grow from around $3 billion per year today to over $50 billion per year by 2040. Gravitricity’s patented technology is based on a simple principle: raising and lowering a heavy weight to store and release energy. The Gravitricity system suspends weights of 500 - 5000 tonnes in a deep shaft by a number of cables, each of which is engaged with a winch capable of lifting its share of the weight. Electrical power is then absorbed or generated by raising or lowering the weight. Gravitricity technology has fast response (<1s), extremely long life, high efficiency and levelised cost of storage almost half that of chemical batteries. The technology will initially be deployed at existing mine-shafts; later on in purpose-sunk shafts exactly where the grid needs storage. GUEST LINKS Website - www.gravitricity.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/gravitricity LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gravitricity EPISODE LINKS How UK's disused mine shafts plan to store renewable energy https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/how-uks-disused-mine-shafts-plan-to-store-renewable-energy Edinburgh company generates electricity from gravity https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-50146801 Gravitricity are Crowdfunding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WE2vgFZY5A Follow us online, write a review (please) or subscribe I'm very keen to hear feedback on the podcast and my guests, and to hear your suggestions for future guests or topics. Contact via the website, or Twitter. If you do enjoy the podcast, please write a review on iTunes, or your usual podcast platform, and tell your cleantech friends about us. That would be much appreciated. Twitter https://twitter.com/weekincleantech Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thisweekincleantech/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/davidhunt2013/