Imagine such a “Crazy” energy storage technology: drive the hanging tower with excess electric energy, build thousands of tons of bricks into a high tower, and use the gravity of bricks to drive the generator connected to the hanging tower in case of power shortage, so as to realize power storage and discharge.
This “building block” energy storage technology, which is based on the physics theory of junior middle school and looks like a juvenile’s scientific fantasy, is going to be implemented.
On March 7, the incineration power generation enterprise China Tianying Inc(000035) ( China Tianying Inc(000035) . SZ) announced that Jiangsu nengying New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Jiangsu nengying”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, would establish Atlas (Jiangsu) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Atlas”) with other three parties, Exclusively develop the construction and operation business of gravity energy storage project based on energyvart gravity energy storage system (“GESS”) technology.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that at present, there is no commercial application case of energyvart’s gravity energy storage technology in the world, and it is uncertain whether China Tianying Inc(000035) can become the first person to successfully eat crabs.
“brick moving” energy storage
So, what is gravity energy storage technology “GESS”?
According to the official website of energyvvault, the company’s main gravity energy storage solution is similar to pumped power storage in theory. It mainly uses special composite bricks to traction power generation facilities through the process of physical lifting to realize power storage and discharge.
In addition, compared with other energy storage schemes with greater environmental constraints, the feature of energyvault gravity energy storage solution is that the brick materials used as energy storage units mainly use waste parts such as gravel soil, fuel residue or fan blades in the project site.
how to promote the technical cooperation between China Tianying Inc(000035) new company and energyvvault?
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter called the Securities Department of the company as an investor and learned that China Tianying Inc(000035) the technology authorization was mainly obtained by the way that atlas renewable LLC, the company’s overseas subsidiary, signed a technology authorization agreement with energy vault.
According to the announcement, Atlas renewable LLC and energyvvault signed a technology licensing agreement on January 31, 2022, allowing atlas to grant licenses directly or indirectly in China, while China Tianying Inc(000035) the listed company directly obtains licenses, and the relevant license term is a 15 year agreement with three conditions. Atlas will pay a total licensing fee of $50 million to energyvvault.
It is reported that atlas to be established by China Tianying Inc(000035) is a joint venture of four companies. Among them, except that Jiangsu nengying, which is wholly controlled by China Tianying Inc(000035) holds 50%, Yan Shengjun, the couple of China Tianying Inc(000035) actual controllers, and Jiangsu tianqin Investment Co., Ltd., which is controlled by Mao Hongju, will hold 10%, and China Tianying Inc(000035) affiliates jointly hold 60% of the company’s equity.
In addition, the reporter learned that atlas Energy Inc, which holds 10% of the equity of atlas energy, also entered the economic zone in China.
no commercialization case yet
According to the data, energyvault obtained 110 million venture capital from Softbank vision in 2019. After that, the company was officially established in September 2020 and launched its first energy storage hanging tower product EV1 In June 2021, energyvvault received capital injection from Saudi Aramco energy venture capital institution, and the company began to launch the SPAC listing plan.
In January 2022, China Tianying Inc(000035) announced that the company would invest US $50 million in the backdoor company of energyvart through atlas renewable LLC overseas entity with 51% equity.
The launch process of energyvvault was officially completed on February 14.
Perhaps it is because gravity energy storage is also a very fashionable concept in US stocks – energy vault rose from $8.96 to $18.57 after its listing, with a maximum increase of 107.25%.
However, when it comes to the specific business of the company, energyvvault is not good.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that in terms of products, the company developed EVRC energy storage products that can be assembled with unit modules based on the EV1 products of the initial power storage tower, and built some project demonstration centers in Switzerland to graft with the local power grid for project tests. According to the data of the energy storage demonstration center provided by the official website of energyvvault, the energy storage capacity of its energy storage module eVx and elastic center EVRC is more than 10mwh, meeting the elastic energy storage of the power grid for 2 ~ 12 hours.
However, these are not specific commercial landing projects.
In 2018, it was reported that Tata power company of India planned to purchase 35mwh gravity energy storage from energyvart, with peak power output of 4MW, and achieve 100% full power within 2.9 seconds of startup and millisecond response time. But there was no follow-up to the news.
In terms of financial reporting, the prospectus of energyvart shows that the company had a total loss of US $37.6 million as of December 2020, a loss of US $24.2 million in 2020, a loss of US $18.6 million as of the end of September 2021, and zero revenue. The company also said that it will continue to lose money in the foreseeable future. Even if it obtains income in the future, it can not guarantee that the company can make profits immediately.
In an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, a person from the primary market said: “most of the enterprises backdoor through the US stock spac have no substantive business for benchmarking and valuation. As long as a bright technical route, they will raise funds in the stock market, and ordinary investors generally do not contact such companies.”
For China Tianying Inc(000035) for this uncertain field, whether it can realize considerable revenue in the future and where the customer resources come from, these problems need to be solved.
On January 30 this year, energyvvault signed a contract with China Tianying Inc(000035) to build a 100mwh gravity energy storage demonstration project in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, which will be completed and put into commercial operation in 2022 to attract investment. Energyvvault will advance $25 million for the construction of the project.
As for the establishment of atlas this time, China Tianying Inc(000035) Securities Department said, “Atlas parent company (Jiangsu nengying) is mainly responsible for energy storage business, China Tianying Inc(000035) energy storage is placed there, and there have been some energy storage business reserves before, which is not its first time to enter the energy storage sector”.
What are the economic benefits of gravity energy storage
There are not many clear or unified views on the commercialization prospect and economic benefits of gravity energy storage in the market.
Some experts pointed out that China Tianying Inc(000035) the current demonstration project can not evaluate its business prospect, and the feasibility depends on the implementation method and difficulty of the project scheme.
According to the data of Bloomberg new energy finance report, the leveling cost of energyvart gravity power storage technology is 60% of that of lithium-ion battery (2021).
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter found that under several common energy storage technology routes, the leveling cost of chemical energy storage (lithium battery, etc.) is 0.64 yuan ~ 1.26 yuan, while the pumped storage cost is as low as 0.21 yuan ~ 0.25 yuan.
This means that the cost of energyvart gravity storage technology is between the two, but the requirement for geographical location is low.
Guotai Junan Securities Co.Ltd(601211) Securities believes that gravity energy storage technology is easier to expand and modularize than lithium battery and pumped storage, and will not produce harmful substances, or rely on compressed air and flywheel to bring potential safety hazards or fire risks.
For China Tianying Inc(000035) , the main source of revenue of gravity energy storage project is project construction, which may not bear the operation responsibility and results.
According to China Tianying Inc(000035) securities department, the construction cycle of a gravity energy storage project is generally about half a year. It is expected that whether the proposition of gravity power storage can be realized will be known soon.
