Integrated manufacturer Sumitomo Heavy Industries has strengthened its foothold in the new energy market with a $46million investment in Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) technology firm Highview Power.
Japan-based Sumitomo, together with its wholly owned subsidiary Sumitomo SHI FW, will promote cooperation with Highview and promote commercialisation of the UK firm’s energy storage system CRYOBattery™.
Sumitomo will also contribute to the use of the technology in Europe US and Asia.
Highview has announced a number of projects in the past year.
The latest was a 50MW/250MWh cryogenic energy storage facility to provide stability services to the UK’s power grid.
Highview claims the system delivers power at £110/MWh ($141/MWh) for a 10-hour, 200MW/2GWh system.
Last August, the company announced it had contracted Tenaska Power Services to plan and deliver energy management services for four cryogenic storage plants totalling up to 4GWh in Texas, US.
The previous month, it unveiled what it said is the world’s first modular giga-scale cryogenic battery.
And Highview claimed the technology reached a levelised cost of storage (LCOS) of $140/MWh for a 10-hour, 200MW/2GWh system.
