Energy vault feels like a crane salesman, a concrete supplier, and a computer animator got together for some beers.

Fair play Dave. I love the fact that you circle back. Keep it going. These progress reports are interesting. Thank you

You've done the public a good service by following up on these companies' progress. Please do continue to provide videos when there is news to share.

I would like to know the actual number of "vertical mineshafts" available with sufficient depth, no water intrusion and other factors to support this. I think that will limit scale. I would also like to know the levelized cost to develop a virgin site under reasonable conditions, ie no worries about water infiltration. That number would represent a scaleable solution. Anything else I think would be less interesting. We can't rely on old mine shafts for a critical new energy storage technology.

I can't believe that energy vault got as far as it did, at best it was too finicky & the next version isn't much better. The gravitricity mineshaft version looks more promising with a more controlled environment, fewer points of failure, it has a much smaller footprint, regenerative power is proven, and cheaper to implement since the hole is already there.

On a delta height of 360 meters, you get 1kWh/ton. To have 1 GWh of storage, you need 1 million tons of weights to move up and down over 360m. If your weights' density is 5 kg/l, you'll have 200'000 cubic meters of volume, which is roughly a parallelepiped of 100x100x20 meters. This is why storing large amounts of energy with gravity is hard (unless you use water reservoirs): because you need a lot of materials and space.

I do believe that pumped hydro is ultimately the answer. It has been a proven technology with far fewer longevity problems than the mechanical wear and tear of wire rope llift systems. Respectfully, Dennis, KV4WM

I love that you addressed "Adam Something" video on gravity storage.

Energy Vault appear to be building a Borg cube, keep a close eye on them, is all I'm saying.

Most mine shafts need constant dewatering to remove water ingress. This comes at a high energy cost which has not been factored into levelized-cost callcs

If they're planning to build a facility into an old mine, pumped storage with water is still better than moving ore around. Many old mines are full of water --- ground water intrusion is a major engineering concern in most active mines, many of them flood almost as soon as they're decommissioned, and the pumps are shut down. It does seem like an end of life mine already has most of the infrastructure in place for pumped storage.

This might be great in a few locations that have pre-existing mine shafts, but not many places do, so it’s like pumped hydro in that regard.

I don't like the cube towers, since it's a total electrical energy loss to transport blocks laterally. It doesn't affect the potential energy, but it does drain electrical energy to move the blocks anywhere but up and down. This is a drain on stacked block towers too. Moving blocks closer or further from the tower core is a net loss.

The thing I like that after 50 years, the Gravitricity storage maybe worn out and need replacing but the hole may need just a new lining to stop water intrusion and the new one may be a fraction of the cost of the first!

Thanks for this Dave! I really appreciate this retrospective format and would love to see more

Excellent content delivered in a quiet and understandable manner. Love the fact that Gravitricity is run by engineers too.

I had a memory of doing energy storage using train cars on a slope so did some googling and found "ADVANCED RAIL ENERGY STORAGE". seems like you could do that in more places without the need for an existing mine shaft.

I like the idea of gravity storage, but I can't see this being useful for mass storage, say to get us through a period of gloomy, windless weather. It would appear that its utility will be for grid balancing.

Great service from you guys always. Well done keep the projects gong

i gave this some thought, and imagined it could be used out at sea for offshore wind storage. just a few more appendages hanging off a tied together wind farm. could even be the righting ballast and be as deep as where the farm is situated. could even hang freely in some places without a structure to drop it in.

Thanks for revisiting them! I often find myself thinking about what they've been up to.

Thanks, I love the concept of revisiting previous video subjects to track the progress :)

I can see how Gravitricity's system can be adapted well to decommissioned powerplants, but in the case of mineshaft would it not just be easier to use Hydro, pumping water in and out of the mine? Love these videos by the way. It is nice to see how these technological concepts progresses

Thank you for this and nice citation -) I am always happy to see engineers initiating projects in the repurposed renewable energy field as most projects therein are not all that renewable and more marketing than fantastic engineering.

Make a video about energy storage in sand. I am sure you've read about the Finnish company that started to use it to warm homes.

For sure gravitricity is more promising, the only problem - they using old mines. And here we have a problem, because from my knowledge they have a tendency to be flooded by ground water hence changing this ideal system. For safety reasons quite often water is pumped out, but the point is, part of stored electricity will be used to pump out the water, so hopefully balance would be still positive.

Really interesting and balanced exploration of this issue. Looking forward to the next update

I would've liked to hear more about the energy capacity of such a system. Even if the results are positive it would have a very limited impact given that it has a ceiling already in the amount of existing mines. Even if the weights are heavier they can't possibly compete with the capacity of pumped-hydro.

Being Scottish Engineers I wouldn't bet against them. They don't tend to be bs merchants. A large part of the Industrial and Scientific revolutions of the 1800's and the British empire is based on the brilliance of Scottish scientists and engineers (and I say that as a wretched Sassenach)

Great to see that work making progress in Edinburgh - In Scotland the central belt and Ayrshire used to have more than 200 collieries, and presumably many of them would have old mineshafts waiting to be used like this.

Really enjoyed the revisit! I see to many videos that talks about “”cutting edge tech”” but only talk about it once.

10/10 to review past videos and current developments, most videos are lineal and this really gives a more dedicated insight on any new technologies.

Thanks for this! I like the update videos, please keep them coming.

No one system is going to cover all our needs but this does sound like a very simple (relatively) solution which will be one of the many we will require. It's only going to work in shafts that aren't flooded though and that may be a limiting factor.

Great to renew my optimism a bit regarding these projects

Amazing video! Thanks for sharing your insights

It would seem a good plan for the sides of mountains as well. I would point out that we've been using the water cycles for energy for some time with mills that run on river currents. Love your work. You seem to do a much better deep dive into what's going on than others I've seen. Thanks.

in a physically constrained world (like, planet earth?) cost of a system SHOULD be evaluated in Joules, not in USD! Storage tech should be evaluated on: #1 ratio of embodied energy over stored energy #2 efficiency: Eout/Ein and #3 max power output

Thanks for this video. Checking back on the progress of these companies is an important accountability move. In the report you cite from the Imperial College of London, the one chart you showed does not mention pumped hydropower storage (PHS). But looking more at that report, I see a number of comparison charts that include PHS and it is shown to be pretty cost-competitive with the Gravitricity proposed method. I'm a bit dubious that Gravitricity's proposal puts things deep underground, a feature at the heart of their plans. The inaccessibility adds some failure modes and repair difficulties. I'd rather bet on an idea like using rails on the side of a mountain that some have mentioned in the comments here. It would have different issues, but seems more likely to remain functional long-term compared to putting the weights deep down in a mine shaft.

"Here in Switzerland, where Energy Vault is situated, we have a particular high knowledge of pumpstorage optimisation. Our pumpstorage lakes in the alps typically contain tens to hundreds of millions of cubic meters and will exploit a hight difference of 500 to 1'500 m, thus storing the same amount of energy as tens of millions (!) of 20 tons concrete blocs. I am happy to see that none of the major Swiss power companies or any of its leading employees support this project."

Hi Dave, thanks for your wonderful channel. Just wondering if at your next scan of this technology you might be able to include some idea of the output numbers we might get from such systems. How would they stack up against flywheel storage systems for example?

Belive that was the video that got me watching your channel. Excited for this :)

Cheers for the heads up Boss 👍

No flies on you Dave. Another outstanding block of fascinating information

I think this "update" and "progress" answers some of the questions raised (e.g. the "wind" problem), but possibly only by moving to different problems. It's easy to say that building a 300 meter shaft would cost such and such moneys and produce such and such energy. So first you reuse existing mining shaft, well done, that could be cheap, they are already there. But can you scale this in any way that would have an impact on our needs? How many holes in the ground can you make without destroying water bed? I mean, speaking of which, in how many places you can make holes without it being flooded by the aquifer? Or outgasing, or shifting local weight distribution enough to cause minor earthquakes that crack house walls, like fracking or geotermal sometimes does. I think a geologist can have a field day with this one. Also, there really isn't that much energy stored in the weights, so the output (especially sustained output) numbers always look a bit meh. And I would also like to ask a mechanical engineer how realistic it is to build a resilitient system that works without constant cost in maintenance. I can get that we can build a good cable. Cool. But there's always the moving parts, jugling blocks, constant cycling of stresses.

Great where there are abandoned mine shafts. I am not convinced that is very common in the world. Good solution for some places though.

I like that revisited the topic again. Nice work!

Great video as always. Thank you.

I think all these systems need to be balanced with the growth in electricity demand. If a system works according to plan it will only increase demand for that resource until the price equalizes itself with other energy storage alternatives. There is no static market commodity as each part of each energy component is seeking a dynamic equilibrium with other energy components.

Again this kinetic energy storage building idea shows they get energy input from windmills to store for later use. It seems ok. However the process seems quite convoluted and technical, and it might not be all that efficient once the system is actually put into action. We will have to see.

Great work, - (older woman from down under, who learnt to drive in a 1952 Ford Prefect that you had to hold in 2nd gear to keep it engaged)

Glad to see this kind of videos. Keep up the good work ;-).

Just throwing out an idea here. Why not build a small scale gravity storage system within the hollow steel tower of every wind turbine that you construct?

The truly interesting point of lowering a weight into a very deep shaft is that you don't need resets, which are a waste of efficiency. All you need to do is a lot of separate weights on cables, and take turns raising some weights on condition of surplus... whoever is closer to the end of their descent can get re-raised while others higher up descend if energy extraction is needed at the time. If no energy extraction is needed, raise them all. A matrix system like this will be immune to outside weather and can have a much farther travel length than any above ground suspended weight system. Multiple weights also gives redundancy to mitigate failures. Mind you I'm just talking out loud and I'm not an engineer so feel free to take a hot s**t on my point of view if it's needed.

I was completely fooled by the animation. Just thought it was made in Switzerland. You Scientists are so smart! Interesting Channel, Thanks! Just keep it dumbed down a little for people like me.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING: A massive weight in controlled fall down a decommissioned mine shaft that has been modified with marine grade concrete 💪🏼 and flooded with water 💧 The weight falls as per usual loosing some energy due to water resistance eventually settling at the bottom. The stainless steel cable spinning up a regen dynamo system all the while. When it comes time to reset the system a portion of the used power is allocated to a simple air pump that sends air to the bottom of the shift into a high tension blatter attached to the weight. The air slowly fills into the bag until eventually it is full and becomes buoyant. The weight rises to the top and is reset. A vacuum pump is attached to the top of the sealed area to allow the weight to reset at 100%. If multiple shafts are in line the entire operation can be as smooth as a well balanced 12 cylinder I.C.E.

I love the idea of using this system in decommissioned mine shafts. That's a great re-using of space that's just sitting there unused. I wonder if that would work in, say, old abandoned oil wells? You could set up some renewable energy infrastructure around it, like solar panels or wind turbines, and use the old mine shafts to store any excess energy.

That seems the best possible implementation of this idea. Use any cheap sand or rocks you got, the one with highest density to price ratio, put it into a huge strong steel bucket and move it up and down along a vertical hole. The main cost would be the construction of the hole, since they would need many close together for significant storage capacity. They could build the crane + generator first and use it to get all the dirt out with a different bucket for construction, make ridiculously long holes, and then reinstall the crane over the compacted dirt dug out of the hole, to gain extra length. The energy is mass * gravity * length of tunnel. The section of the cables is proportional to the mass, and its length equal to the length of the tunnel, so the amount of cable is proportional to the energy stored, and there's no way to reduce it by making it light but deep or heavy but shallow. So assuming a tunnel 4 meters in diameter with a weight 12 meters long, it's pi*2**2 * 12 = 150m^3 Filled with water: 150 tons of weight (less weight and more problems, not a good option) Filled with dry sand: 1.6*150 = 240 tons Filled with rocks (100% compacted granite or basalt, 2.6-3 t/m**3): about 400 tons Filled with magnetite: 5*150 = 900 tons A tunnel 1km long with magnetite would store E = m*g*l = 8.8GJ = 2450kWh With a low-discharge high capacity liion battery of $100/kWh, that same storage capacity would cost $245 000 It seems quite hard to me to imagine such a tunnel for such a low cost, knowing that The Boring Company was able to make their tunnels for 4M$/km A 100 meter tunnel for $24 500 seems also quite hard to do. Maybe with many close tunnels reusing the same machinery it could be achieved, but it seems hard to me. Like energy, if tunnel boring became cheaper, many many opportunities would arise.

Nice chap, like listening to him, he talks down to earth with no hype which so many seem to do.

Gravitricity evaluated at $0.05/kWh for storage is amazing. Then again the concept is pretty simple and reliable. The fact is you could find a useful location, mine a new shaft, line it with something resilient like steel sleeve and concrete, and use it for 100 years. To add to the efficiency you might even just fill your hollow weights with crushed rock from the hole you mined. The energy to mine would be massively dwarfed by the use of shaft for power storage and release nightly 365 days a year for 100 years. (Concrete dams last 100 years) I could even envision multiple weights stacked with holes for cables for the weights below them. Lift the top one, then lift the next one, and so on and so on. Obviously most of the material would have to be removed or else you wouldn't have movement in the shaft, but many more than one weight would be best.

Great video, Dave, and a great idea, to see how projects are getting on. Here in Saarland, Germany, there are many disused deep mines, so perfect location for energy storage. I'm sure the tech. won't cause earthquakes, all nice and smooth. However, the shafts are all full of water, sure the weights aren't bouyant, but would act like plungers. I wonder what the consequences would be? Loss of energy, fountains...

That EVRC animation is so frustrating to look at, its literally being animated next to a mountain where a reservoir could be built and water could be pump to at a higher elevation for more energy potential than the building they propose. Its unreal the people making the animation didnt catch such a basic observation

Glad you came back around to this concept. Thunderf00t sure did take them to task. I live in an area with abundant wind power, with the highlands of 1500ft is easily harnessed to this purpose. Installing a track that could bring a payload, up and down seems a no brainer. In our case, there is a stone guarry up top next to the windmills. The track could be used to bring loads down. Replacing fossil fueled trucks and generating power on the way down. Anyways, we are burning biomass for electricity generation here in Nova Scotia still. We are still a ways off from having such forward thinking ideas take hold.

Any moving part system for electricity storage system will be riddled with lot of problems and very high maintenance costs as time goes by. Also losses in charging discharing ratio will keep moving up, like our cars drop mileage as driven more. Best will be some unique chemistry with abundant non-toxic material. Thanks Dave for wonderful follow up video.

I know that the devil is in the details, but this seems to be a really good solution since it doesn't require any of the raw materials needed for grid scale battery storage so both systems could be employed simultaneously without competing for the same resources. Love it! So much better than a coal fired peaker plant. :-)

It seems to me that the gravitricity process has endless variations. How many old closed mines are in the western US where you would only need a headframe built to use them? And that same principle could be used on steep inclines with rail systems and cables. I have seen many slopes in Colorado that could be utilized to great effect. But the best solutions would be very close to the power source to keep down transmission costs. Where are the good solar and wind opportunities and how many storage sites are available nearby? Pair them up near an end user and you have renewable power 24/7 which is the stumbling block. Smaller more localized grids that can interlock is the real solution. I really like their answer for using gravel instead of solid weights as it could extend the life by reducing weight as they approach end of life means a gradual degradation instead of a sudden shut down as metal fatigues and cables weaken. Just lower the weight by removing gravel to get more years of use. Lower output is better than no output. And just think if ski slopes would build such systems large enough to provide their own power plus enough to power the towns that are nearby. In the off season they would have a source of income as all of the power could be sold on the grid. Just put them in pipelines with tracks inside and avoid the weather issues. No reason they must be totally vertical.

Thunderfoot did an excellent "debunk" of the tower concept, and did mention hydroelectric as a form of gravity storage. I mean, wasn't very hard to debunk, eh?

I do miss your original intro, very original and brilliant.

Making concrete adds a lot of carbon to the atmosphere. I wonder how long it would take a gravity/concrete method to make up for for all the carbon created during construction?

One day I had a brilliant idea, why not support a house with hydraulic jacks and use its enormous weight to store energy? Of course, you would only need to lift a house a few centimeters or inches to store enough energy for the day. But before founding my startup, I tried to get a rough estimate of those centimeters. The daily average electricity usage per household is around 30 KWH in US, or 108000000 Joules. A house weights between 100 to 200 tons, so let's use 150000 KG. Potential Energy = mass * standard gravity * height. or: height = Potential Energy / (mass * standard gravity ) height = 108000000 / (150000 * 10) = 72 m or 236 ft Energy storage using gravity? This is a horrible idea.

One of the problem with mines is that they tend to fill with water and have to be constantly pumped out, which will reduce both efficiency and increase maintenance costs. I could see old strip mines being useful for this as well. An inclined plain should work just as well if slower, and those things are usually big coils going down into the ground. Not as well, as there is friction and they will collect even more water, but it could still be net positive.

Most people don't even realize that storage is an essential part of utilizing intermittent renewables. Many activists that do know tend to wave it away as a non-issue, saying the the grid is the battery. So what we need is more publicity for these efforts and more education on their critical nature if intermittent sources continue to be subsidized and installed.

Thats unique. Question can you talk about thirsty cement please 🙂.

One factor I didn't hear you mention is the round trip efficiency. Even though round trip efficiency is included in the levelized cost of storage capacity (LCOSC), I think it merits individual mention since it makes no sense to use a storage system that only returns only half or less of the energy input into the storage system. In this regard gravity storage systems have a very good round trip efficiency. The only points of energy loss is from electricity to rotation of the motor/generator to store energy and then back again to electricity along with some friction losses in the gearbox and pully system. Substantial improvements in efficiency of motor/generators larger than 500 kilowatt and the power electronics to control the motor/generator thanks to the NASA Electrified Aircraft Propulsion program to electrify aircraft from fully electric for very small aircraft of around 10 seats to a turbine/electric hybrid for aircraft for larger aircraft. Motors and power electronics currently in testing at the 1 MW size are able to achieve efficiencies of 96% and 99% respectively. That means that round trip efficiency is in the range of (0.96*0.99*0.96*0.99 = 0.903) 90.3%. Knock another percent or two off for friction in the system and you get round-trip efficiencies of 88%-89%. This is less than the 95% round trip efficiency of lithium-ion batteries, but better than the 80% for both pumped hydro or 70% for compressed air storage (assuming that heat removed during compression stored elsewhere such as in phase-change salts where it can be added back to the high pressure air before being expanded through the turbine.CAES systems without heat storage have such poor round-trip efficiency as to not be a viable large scale energy storage). And an alternative to vertical pits is to take advantage of long slopes where rail lines can be laid and electric trains with cars full of rocks or other high density material (slag?) that take power from or return power to power cables as the train is run up and down the slopes to store and release energy respectively. The advantage of course is that it doesn't need a 500 meter deep hole to exist or to be dug. This can be done with conventional trains with a locomotive with electric motor/generators providing the input power going up the slope and extracts power to "brake" the train going down the hill and a train of railcars filled with heavy stuff. This system has the advantage that it can follow a winding path to adapt to the contours of the slope in order to keep the grade within the friction limits of the wheels of the locomotive on the track. If all cars in the train had traction motors, that slope could be steeper. Alternately a cog railway or a cable system with stationary motor/generators at the top of the slope can allow the slope to be very steep. Such a cable system has been proposed by Advanced Rail Energy Storage (aresnorthamerica.com/). The system consist of a number of individual bins containing "heavy stuff" that travel up and down the slope to store and release energy. A set of motor/generators at the top of the slope drives a cable that runs in a loop along the slope. The individual bins clamp to the cable to go or down the slope. A flat area at the top and bottom allow a number of bins to be queued up on either end. The amount of energy that can be stored is determined by the total number of bins that can be parked at the top of the slope. The total power of a single rail system is determined by the maximum power of the motor/generators with the limit being the number of bins that can fit on the slope at one time. So as to keep the speed of the motor/generators constant at their highest efficiency speed, the number bins that are on the slope at a given time would likely be how the power is adjusted rather than the speed of the bins. The input and output power of the total system can be increase by putting additional tracks on a given slope. With parallel tracks, the flat sections at the top and bottom can be shorter for a given amount of energy storage for the total system. Also note that the maximum power and the total system storage capacity is somewhat decoupled and so can be tuned to a given situation.

Thx for your work! :)

It is an interesting concept especially for long term energy storage.

The problem I have with these gravity concept is you cannot control the amount of power you output onto the grid, it’s either running or not, it would also have to re-sync to the grid each time, they are interesting ideas but I see them as more edge cases for helping the grid

well here we go again, apart from dam's and pumped hydro which we've been using for millennia, these new gravity energy storage systems seem a bit cranky, especially when there's better options using common materials for grid level storage liquid air being one of them.

Many mines in the Netherlands have been decommissioned already and most of them are flooded. To lower weights in them seriously pumping is continuously needed. Some of the mines are now in use for diving instructions.

There are also bridge-able, narrow, deep canyons. Also since there are surplus high rise office buildings because of telecommuting, surplus elevator shafts could be used with local solar for local night energy needs.

The mine shaft version looks nice. I wonder if you could use one lift system to make use of multiple shafts to save on overheads. Assuming a site has multiple shafts in close proximity.

Great video, thanks for the update. I am an Engineer and I think the Gravitricity solution looks much more reasonable and the Energy Vault solution seems overly complex. Two questions: 1) Has Gravitricity considered a hybrid solution where large blocks are staged at ground level and attached and detached to the lift so that you could gain addition capacity without having to drill more holes and add more generators? 2) How deep will the holes be? What is the estimated capacity for a single hole?

Felicitaciones. Un trabajo muy serio y moderado. Me parece que, efectívamente, la reutilización de antiguos pozos profundos es, posiblemente, la única opción válida para el almacenamiento de energía gravitatoria. A pesar de ello, intuyo que se van a desarrollar nuevos sistemas mucho más eficientes que pondrán en serios aprietos la competitividad de los sistemas de almacenamiento gravitatorio.

I liked your video from Sep 28, 2021 where retired thermal plants were repurposed to PCM plants using molten&solid aluminum. Since there is no chemistry, the block could run through essentially infinite cycles. I originally thought that it would be great for keeping LFTR plants running at peak efficiency, but now I feel that it would be easy to implement as a bridge storage system in already existing infrastructure.

Having worked for a couple of engineering startups, the word 'modular' is one of those engineering red flags that investors haven't caught on to yet

an idea I had that I was happy to see some scientists also looked at is the possibility of using skyscrapers as gravity storage. basically, lots of elevators already have energy-recovery systems built in, so use some section of the elevator and building to carry and store loads. almost all the infrastructure is already in place. may only need something like a kiva robot to move the loads. this would be ideal for big buildings that have multiple elevators, esp office buildings, since one or more of the elevators can be sectioned off (esp at night) to move the loads. (Another option is a two-story elevator, where one booth is just for loads and inaccessable to the public.) truth be told, like most gravity storage systems, I don't know if the economics of this work out, but it does seem really enticing to have energy storage built into local structures by making dual use of capital.

Love to see this one working soon!

thankyou, for doing this update, i quite liked both technologies in the mentioned video, i didnt see the issues with the block tower others' saw. I did however favour the mine shaft, because we need to use and reuse our resources efficiently vrs building new infrastructure when we need to keep as much land free for nature and food production as possible. I think we should start looking into building new buildings underground -at the minimum, theyd be more energy efficient and not take up agricultural and natural resources

The Gravitricity system sounded great last year and I'm glad they're making progress. Shame that the government doesn't help and get things like this pushed along. I can see this working really well to balance the over and undersupply of wind and solar.

As the system offers long term storage with term independent losses, the tech could offer a tool for the box to cater for seasonal dips.

Sounds like it's moving forward no matter what I think anyway. Keep it green and I'm all for it.

I like your even-handed style, and the level of technical detail. Solving how we store energy is the key to the future of sustainable energy supply, so let’s hope Gravitricity can get it right and scale up quickly via licensing etc once the full size plant is proven.

The only bad idea is one that isn't voiced. It is very easy to shoot down projects while not suggesting alternatives. Keep up the good work Dave !

After reviewing several hundred comments, it seems clear that gravity storage just does not have the necessary energy density. The exception of Pumped Hydro does not change this fact. Engineering expertise, time and money, should not be wasted on anything below a certain level of energy density. It will never scale.

Great video. Time for an update!!! 😊😊

I like the inclusion of LCoES. The issue with storage is also energy density (energy/volume), land use, and location (it should not be too far from users), and here one may get confused with the Figure given in the LCOS-GravityStorage report, as li-ion is much more used than CAES (which is a more mature concept), even though the diagram/figure misleadingly shows a much lower cost.

Seems like a very promising idea. You would think that US coal mining states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, with numerous old mine shafts, would be all over this.

It just feels like Gravitricity is the more reasonable concept. Taking existing unused shafts, smaller container based weights and existing technology makes it seems like a viable prototype. It will have to be proven to actually work and give the expected outputs, but it at least isn't a huge tower of concrete blocks

My idea if you live where there is at least moderate rainfall is to build a concrete underground home, into a hillside maybe with what would amount to an Olympic sized pool above the house with shutters and blinds over it to prevent evaporation in summer 1. to catch drinking water 2. Once filled micro hydroelectric could be integrated into the fixtures to charge batteries. They could cycle at intervals to keep the batteries charged as long as ample water is available. The pool would insulate the house for heating and cooling as well as block EMF waves.

All those energy storage methods face the same problem: cost. They are just too expensive when compared to the "just generated" electricity that is reliably produced day in, day out, night in night out by for example natural gas.