Israeli firm Augwind Energy has announced plans to build its first commercial-scale “AirBattery” project in Germany.
The facility will be an industrial-scale operational installation of Augwind’s AirBattery Hydraulic Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology, designed specifically for grid-scale storage for up to months at a time.
The product offers a buffer during periods of low solar and wind output, providing backup for up to a month for utilities, grid operators and traders to deal with renewables intermittency and stabilise electricity markets.
This system combines two technologies: it merges pumped hydroelectric principles with compressed air storage,
circulating water between underground chambers to compress and decompress air at a large scale.
Excess energy is used to compress air to pressures from 50 bar all the way to above 200 bar, depending on the demand and geomorphic structure of the cavern, and feed the pressurised air into vast underground caverns, larger than the Empire State building.
The excess renewable energy is effectively stored for times that the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow with a typical cavern having the potential to store enough compressed air to generate 3-8 GWh of electricity.
Energy is recovered from the system by returning the high-pressure air back through the water filled chambers, streaming the water to spin a turbine and generate electricity. Augwind has already reached a 47% AC-to-AC round-trip efficiency at its AirBattery demonstration facility in Israel, validating that commercial installations will exceed 60%.
Augwind’s first commercial scale AirBattery facility will use amined salt cavern suited for such long-duration energy storage. The cavern will serve as a low-cost, high-capacity compressed-air reservoir, enabling scalable and cost-effective
energy storage for up to several months, a vital capability as Europe races to increase renewable energy penetration beyond 50%.
Or Yogev Founder and CEO of Augwind said:
“This is more than a project; it’s a milestone for achieving net zero. With the AirBattery, we’re introducing a storage solution that finally matches the scale and rhythm of renewable energy. Germany’s redundant salt caverns, industrial leadership, and climate ambition make it the perfect launchpad for our first commercial deployment.
“Our goal is to become Europe’s preferred partner for multiweek storage solutions. With this German launch, we are proving that long term energy storage to balance the grid is not only technically feasible, but it’s economically sound.”
