High Density Hydro [HDHydro] R&D developing new IP

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£699,330

Sept. 30, 2020

May 31, 2021

The project is designed to rebuild and catch-up the companies R&D activities, following C-19\. To grow the business creating jobs across engineering, manufacturing, construction. RheEnergise offers an opportunity for significant UK exports (licenced revenues and manufacture equipment).

High-Density-Hydro \[HDHydro\]: An electro-mechanical energy-storage solution that builds upon traditional pumped-hydro. Traditional pumped-hydro provides levelised costs of energy-storage significantly below (<50% lower) competing energy-storage technologies \[batteries\]. However projects take decades to complete. Traditional pumped-hydro uses low-cost electricity to pump huge volumes of water up mountains into a reservoir. As prices rise the water is released through turbines regenerating electricity to the national-grid. Projects need huge water volumes, mountains \[often remote/ protected areas\] and large-scale grid infrastructure, creating social and environmental concerns.

HDHydro is different. RheEnergise has developed a new high-density, low-viscosity, environmentally-benign fluid (Rhe1809) with 2.5x the density of water. This means (if everything else stayed the same) RheEnergise projects provide 2.5x the power \[MW\] or 2.5x the energy \[MWh\] compared to water. It means projects are smaller (2.5x smaller volumetrically), built on low hills (2.5x lower) rather than mountains, connected to the existing distribution grid. As traditional pumped-hydro projects costs are ~65% civil engineering costs, a 60% saving in construction volumes is significant. Projects are physically similar in size as competing flexibility technologies (batteries, gas-peaking) and can be consented/ constructed in a similar 24-30 months. Lastly, levelised costs are comparable with traditional pumped-hydro (50% below batteries).

This project is an R&D catch-up project investigating those areas that have been adversely affected by C-19\. Five R&D areas:

1\. Fully characterise the environmentally benign high-density low-viscosity fluids rheology

2\. To optimise reversible-pump-turbine mechanical efficiency for the fluid

3\. To build a physical test-rig for seals design and seal arrangements for the fluid

4\. Physical Wear/ Abrasion tests to help system and sub-system specification

5: A supply and logistics study (costs and environmental) for the fluid raw materials.

Energy-storage projects commercial viability depend on several factors that inform levelised-costs: Capital-cost; Operational-costs; Round-trip efficiencies. This project addresses and improves upon each and in addition seeks to better understand Rheenergise's supply chain environmental footprint.