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RSA proposed electricity storage using weight by a UK co.

Jaymack
Man's innovation, when will it end? What's done is done, but we shouldn't be boring new holes, rather horizontal and vertical dams for the use of. If we were tenants, we would have been evicted a long time ago.


Jaymack

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/gravitricity-plan-to-turn-south-african-mine-shafts-into-grid-batteries-2019-10
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    I have a system like that at home. It's called a grandfather clock. ?


    I like the idea, but it wouldn't work so well in parts of the world where mines are liable to fill with water.
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    It is an interesting idea
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    Chris Pearson:

    I like the idea, but it wouldn't work so well in parts of the world where mines are liable to fill with water.




    But then if the mines fill with water you can have a normal pumped storage system (as long as the water doesn't get too far ahead of the usage).

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    So long as the weight is not a 'piston fit' in the shaft I do not really see why water should be a show stopper, long thin torpedo shaped weights with a hole up the middle or a similar flow bypass feature are possible. Clearly they need to be a lot denser than water, but for example lead is 13 times. I concede that a weight that floated would be a bit trickier ?.

    If the figures in the video are to be believed then they are talking of running a town for 2 hours, in shaft of order km depth, and 1m/sec is 3.6km per hour, so we are looking at half a metre per second.

    So does it stack up ? To generate at say 10 megawatts, a respectable emergency genset size for perhaps 10,000 houses, at  a weight speed of 1m/sec,

    mgh = 10,000,0000 needs a weight of 1 megakilo, or  1000 tonnes. In lead that could be as simple as  a chain of 8 lumps each 1m square and 10m long - Big but not unthinkably so . Rather stronger winding gear would be needed than the traditional headgear of an old mine however so some ground reinforcement may be required. Towards the bottom you have the weight of the cables helping too. Not too silly compared to many ideas in circulation if the holes are almost free.
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    South Africa is suffering from rolling blackouts planned for up to nine hours a day. Electricity shortages earlier in the year have been responsible for the country's biggest economic decline in ten years. Recently Africa's public utility company the debt ridden Eskom said that it was cutting up to 6,000 Mega Watts of power from the national grid. It has suffered from corruption and mismanagement under the Jacob Zuma government.  There have been power cuts causing malfunctioning traffic lights causing miles of gridlock. Eskom has old coal fired power stations. The South African economy is in recession.
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    Another article about this...   here   page 13 if the link works.

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