This startup wants to use the Earth as a massive battery
The Texas -based Quidnet Energy has completed a test that shows that it can store energy for up to six months by pumping underground water.
The use of water to store electricity is a new concept – compressed hydroelectric storage has been present for more than a century. But the company hopes to help its distortion in technology in bringing in the storage of cheap and long energy to new places.
In traditional pumped water storage facilities, electrical pumps move hard water, into a natural or human body. Then, when the electricity is needed, the water is launched and flows down the turbines, which generates electricity. Instead, the Quidnet approach pumps the water down to the non -executed rock formations and keeps it under pressure so that it flows when it is launched. “It is like Hedroed Hydro, upside down,” says CEO Joe Zhou.
Quidnet started a six -month test of its technology in late 2024, which presses the system. In June, the company managed to drain 35 megawatts an hour of energy from the well. Zhu says: There was no self -emptying, which means that there was no energy loss.
Improper shapes can help store energy that can store electricity for weeks or the most common unnecessary electricity sources such as wind and solar energy to the network. The Quidnet approach, which uses the equipment available commercially, can quickly and qualify for federal tax credits to help make it cheaper.
However, there is still a large teacher in the future: restoring compressed water to electricity. The company is currently building a facility with turbines and support equipment to do so – all ingredients are available for purchase from the applicable companies. “We do not need to create new things based on what we have already developed today,” says Zhu. “We can now start publishing on very large standards.”
This process will come with energy loss. Energy storage systems are usually measured by their circular journey efficiency: the amount of electricity that is placed in the system is ultimately returned as electricity. Modeling indicates that Quidnet technology can reach the maximum of 65 % efficiency, although some design options to improve the economy are likely to cause approximately 50 %.
This is less efficient than Lithium ion batteries, but long -term systems, if they are sufficiently cheap, can work in low competencies and are still useful for the network, says Paul Dunholm, a great research colleague at the National Renewable Energy Lab.
“It should be costly competitive, all of this is due,” says Dunholm.
Lithium Ion batteries, the fastest growth technology in energy storage, are the goal that must be chased new forms of energy storage, such as Quidnet’s. Lithium Ion batteries are 90 % cheaper today than it was 15 years ago. They have become a competitive alternative to prices to build new natural gas factories, says Dunholm.
When it comes to competing with batteries, one can be a potential discrimination of Quidnet is government subsidies. While the Trump administration has been funded to clean energy technologies, there is still energy storage credit, although the approved legislation recently added new restrictions to the supply chain.
Starting in 2026, new energy storage facilities will need to qualify to obtain tax credits to prove that at least 55 % of the value of project materials are not an anxious foreign entities. This excludes batteries from China, which dominates battery production today. QUIDNET says it has a “high level of local content” and is expected to qualify for tax credits under the new rules.
Building Quidnet is a project with the CPS Energy Agency, and must come online in early 2026.
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2025-07-29 09:00:00
