Carbon dioxide battery storage player in Chile project talks

Long-duration energy storage solutions provider Energy Dome has potential projects in the pipeline in Chile, BNamericas was told.

The Italian-headquartered company – which is also in talks with the local mining sector as it is eyeing increased electrification of operations – offers a modular carbon dioxide battery plant of 20MW capacity with discharge duration of around 10 hours.

The gas is stored under pressure and, when needed, dispatched via evaporation and expansion, spinning a standard turbine before being stored again.

Energy Dome, which is planning to obtain the gas from the oil refining process, is in talks with multiple renewables generators and utilities.

According to information from the environmental review agency SEA, neither Cerro Dominador, which is considering installing Energy Dome technology at its 110MW concentrated solar plant, nor Enlasa are required to submit their carbon dioxide battery projects for environmental review. Meanwhile, Enel has recently started the process for a similar project at one of its solar PV farms. 

Developers can submit letters of pertinence to SEA to find out whether projects should be submitted for environmental review.

“There are new technologies now available, already proven, based on equipment, components that have been used for decades in the oil and gas and conventional power industries, which are ready to provide very cost-effective, highly efficient, deployable, scalable solutions, right now,” said Energy Dome's senior VP for global sales, Paul Smith.

Energy Dome cut the ribbon on its first full-scale demonstration plant two years ago in home market Italy, where a full commercial project is due to start operations in 1Q25, supported by the European Investment Bank and Bill Gates’ climate initiative Breakthrough Energy. 

“We’ve been working in Chile for two years already,” Smith said on the sidelines of the Energy Storage Summit Latin America conference, being held this week in Chilean capital Santiago. 

SEA told Enlasa, which was previously granted an environmental license for a liquid air-based solution that has now been substituted by the carbon dioxide project, that it did not have to go through the process again.   

“We have three clients with projects at different stages of the permitting process,” Smith said. “The potential is really huge. In Chile alone, realistically speaking, we could reach gigawatt-scale.” 

Energy Dome's business development director for Chile, Ernesto Heyer, said the mining sector sees the solution as a way to support grid stability amid the prospect of greater electrification, reduced coal-fired generation and increased penetration of non-conventional renewables.  

“On the demand side, miners and cities will become more electrified, cities especially, with electric cars, electric heating, and on the mining side, they want to start using electric trucks,” Heyer said. 

“Demand will also be very variable in the near-time, so they need units that can provide stability for the grid and also the arbitrage of spot prices between the day and the night.” 

Installed energy storage capacity is advancing apace in Chile, where the 1GW milestone is expected to be reached by year-end. 

Average discharge duration is around 4-5 hours, amid growing interest in systems that inject for longer to help reduce thermoelectric generation after the sun goes down and, in turn, support higher renewables penetration.  

While, today at least, lithium-ion batteries inject power into the grid for an average of around 4-5 hours, solutions such as Energy Dome’s can inject for some 10 hours  

As well as an energy-shifting function, Energy Dome’s solution, given it has inertia benefits, is seen particularly well-suited to delivering the grid stability services currently provided by Chile’s fleet of coal-fired power plants, which are being gradually retired or converted. Energy Dome offers two deployment options: energy storage-as-a-service and buy your own plant.

Increased regulatory clarity is needed to fully unlock the potential of the ancillary services revenue stream, conference delegates said during panel discussions.