Gravitational energy storage technology startup Green Gravity has raised $9 million from local and international institutional investors through a Series A funding round.
The Wollongong-based company plans to store energy by suspending weights at the top of decommissioned mineshafts and uses gravitational energy to spin turbines when the weights are lowered.
Funding from BlueScope’s investment arm, BlueScopeX, builds on an existing partnership that saw Green Gravity’s demonstration plant built at the Port Kembla Steelworks.
Other investments were made through asset manager HMC Capital, New Zealand-based fund manager and venture capital firm Pacific Channel, and Sumisho Coal, subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation.
The investment will be spent on completing product development work on Green Gravity’s energy storage technology. Further development will include engineering and physical testing at the scale needed to make commercial deployment decisions.
Green Gravity founder and chief executive Mark Swinnerton said receiving backing from “a world class syndicate of investors” demonstrates the company’s impact on “the renewable energy storage landscape”.
The company, founded in 2021, has been shortlisted as a finalist at the InnovationAus Awards for Excellence 2024 in the energy and renewables category. Winners and finalists will be celebrated at a black-tie gala dinner in Sydney on October 30. Tickets are available here.
Testing and engineering development has been ongoing over the last year, with the technology expected to be configured for “mid-duration storage applications of four to 24 hours, deliver 80 per cent energy efficiency and to enable reuse of critical grid infrastructure”.
“With more than 80 deployment options in review, we expect to make a major contribution to decarbonising the energy grid in the coming years,” Mr Swinnerton said.
Green Gravity, which is based in Wollongong, commissioned its 12-metre high demonstration facility last year at BlueScope’s Port Kembla Steelworks facility.
Just before construction began in May 2023, Mr Swinnerton said the purpose-built demonstration facility would be “capable of moving 16 separate weighted objects in a sequence to test the capabilities of our technology”.
Pacific Channel venture partner Marny Reakes said the Asia-Pacific fund management firm recognises the “benefit of their technology to provide low-cost energy storage and repurpose legacy mine sites”.
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