Energy Vault Holdings, In, a leader in sustainable, grid-scale energy storage solutions, announced the groundbreaking for the first EVx™ deployment in China.
The 100 MWh gravity-based EVx system is being built adjacent to a wind farm and national grid site in Rudong, Jiangsu Province located outside of Shanghai to augment and balance China’s national energy grid through the delivery of renewable energy to the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC). SGCC is the world’s largest utility and provides power to more than 1.1 billion Chinese citizens in 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, covering 88% of Chinese national territory.
Commencement of EVx construction follows the previously announced License and Royalty agreement for renewable energy storage in partnership with Houston-based Atlas Renewable LLC (“Atlas Renewable”) and its majority investor China Tianying Inc. (CNTY) (CN: 000035), an international environmental management and waste remediation corporation engaged in smart urban environmental services, resource recycling and recovery, and zero-carbon clean energy technologies.
The project is the first utility scale gravity-based storage deployment between a U.S. and Chinese company and was approved by the local city government and provincial government with support from the central government agencies within the People’s Republic of China. The EVx deployment was granted unprecedented fast-tracked preliminary approval at a March 12th conference of cross-governmental agencies, including National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Ecology & Environment, Ministry of Industry Information and Technology, National Energy Bureau, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, National Power Grid and National Electric Power Planning Institute, as well as some of China’s leading scientists, academicians, and engineers, to accelerate and advance its State mandated environmental policy commonly referred to as “30-60”. That policy has a stated goal of Carbon Peak in 2030 and Carbon Neutrality in 2060.
On April 26th, the Energy Investment Professional Committee of the Investment Association of China, Three Gorges Construction Group, China Construction New Energy Shanghai (7th Unit), China Tianying and Atlas Renewable held an online seminar to discuss the deployment of gravity energy storage technology in China. The parties conducted in-depth exchanges and communication on gravity energy storage technology and the deployment of Energy Vault’s EVx system in Rudong, Jiangsu Province. Representatives of all parties expressed their ardent support for the project and full confidence in the future of gravity energy storage technology in China. Both Three Gorges Construction Engineering Group and China Construction New Energy Shanghai (7th Unit), two major tier-one global energy and construction companies, vowed to participate in the in-depth cooperation with Atlas Renewable and China Tianying on Energy Vault’s gravity energy storage projects and promote the implementation of the project in China.
Energy Vault and Atlas Renewable signed a $50 million licensing agreement for the use of Energy Vault’s proprietary gravity-based energy storage technology and its technology agnostic energy management and asset optimization software suite in the Chinese power market. The agreement also includes terms governing volume-based deployment royalties and covers maintenance, monitoring and the beneficial re-use of waste materials within Energy Vault’s composite blocks. The payment of the $50 million licensing fee is scheduled to be completed in 2022.
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Energy Vault’s partnership with Atlas Renewable and China Tianying, and the deployment of EVx, are directly aligned with the U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s, published at COP26 in November 2021. The Declaration states that the U.S. and China intend to expand their combined efforts to accelerate the transition to a global net zero economy through cooperation on policies to encourage decarbonization and electrification of end-use sectors; key areas related to the circular economy, such as green design and renewable resource utilization; transmission policies that encourage efficient balancing of electricity supply and demand across broad geographies; and distributed generation policies that encourage integration of solar, storage, and other clean power solutions closer to electricity users; among other initiatives.