Pyhäjärvi, a town in central Finland, could house Europe’s first full-scale gravity energy store in a disused shaft at the Pyhäsalmi Mine.
The mine, owned by Canadian corporation First Quantum Minerals, was Europe’s deepest zinc and copper mine.
The local community, through the development company Callio Pyhäjärvi, has partnered with Gravitricity for this project.
Gravitricity, an Edinburgh-based energy storage firm, plans to employ its GraviStore technology in the 530-metre-deep auxiliary shaft.
The system involves raising and lowering heavy weights, combining features of lithium-ion batteries and pumped hydro storage.
The collaboration aims to deliver a 2MW storage capacity project that integrates into the local electricity grid, providing balancing services to the Finnish network.
Commenting on the initiative Gravitricity’s Executive Chairman Martin Wright said: “This project will demonstrate at full scale how our technology can offer reliable long life energy storage that can capture and store energy during periods of low demand and release it rapidly when required.
“This full-scale project will provide a pathway to other commercial projects and allow our solution to be embedded into mine decommissioning activities, offering a potential future for mines approaching the end of their original service life.”
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