The engineering team guided by Mr. Claudio Spadacini, founder and CEO of Energy Dome is building a 2.5MW/4MWh first of a kind energy storage facility in Sardinia, Italy, expected to be launched in early 2022.

The plant, with a size of 2.5MWe and 4MWh, will be designed allowing for future storage expansion bringing it to 8MWh and above. The Demo Plant will use the same component parts as the full-scale commercial system of 25MW and 100MWh or 200MWh, effectively proving the readiness of this technology for the market.

This demonstration project is meant to be operated commercially and generate revenue by operating on the energy and ancillary services markets. Energy Dome technology provides outstanding performance, achieving a highly competitive Round Trip Efficiency (RTE) and Levelised Cost Of Storage (LCOS) for storage durations from 3 to 16+ hours, with little or no degradation over time.

Less than two years since its incorporation, Energy Dome will deploy the Demonstration Plant, by pioneering an innovative alternative to batteries for utility scale energy storage. Energy Dome’s technology is based on a completely new process which has been engineered and designed to use only existing and proven equipment. The team rose to the challenge to develop a solution that would not only be technologically and economically feasible now, but would also overcome the inherent limitations of Lithium Ion. Notably, the CO2 Battery poses no fire risk, uses no rare materials and marries a better performance with a lower capital cost, as compared to Li-Ion.

Energy Dome CEO, Claudio Spadicini says:

It’s a remarkable milestone being ready to show and prove our technology after only one and a half year from Energy Dome’s incorporation. The uniqueness of the CO2 Battery lies not only in the innovative thermodynamic process of storing energy by liquifying CO2 at ambient temperature, but also in the process itself. This, using off-the-shelf equipment, will prove that our technology is ready and initial market signs suggest a rapid global take-up by leading power sector operators.”

The unique and innovative solution, that Energy Dome has designed and patented, stores energy in the form of liquid CO2 in pressurized vessels, is based on off-the-shelf equipment readily available from the global supply chain. The CO2 Battery Demo plant will both prove the efficiency of the technology and the capability of the technology to provide energy and regulation services on the electrical grid, by testing the technology at a relevant scale and by overcoming the technical risks, which mainly refer to the risk of component integration (TRL 9).

The CO2 Battery technology is based on a closed loop thermodynamic process that efficiently stores energy by manipulating CO2 under different state conditions. In charging mode, the CO2 is compressed and stored under pressure at ambient temperature in a high density supercritical or liquid state. In discharging mode, the CO2 is expanded into a turbine and stored back into an atmospheric gasholder, releasing the energy to the grid in a closed loop system, with zero-emission to the atmosphere.

Energy Dome’s team is proud of participating to the global energy transition starting from Sardinia, by contributing to the great ambition of making it the first Italian island 100% green.