A proposed massive underground maglev floating railway could store 10% of the entire Netherlands’ power needs as kinetic energy according to its inventor.
Developed by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), the floating railway is envisaged to operate on a circular track with a radius of 2.5 kilometres.
Surplus wind and solar electricity would be re-routed to propel a pure-mass floating maglev train within a vacuum tunnel, reaching speeds of 2,000 kilometres per hour. Given the high speeds, which would see Energy Train experiencing g-forces reaching 10G, the facility would need to be underground.
During times of a deficit of renewables production, the kinetic energy can be converted back into electricity and transmitted into the mains grid. ECN says Energy Train could store 2.5 gigawatt hours of electricity for an eight-hour period or 400 megawatt hours for 48 hours.
“Storage will be an extremely important factor when we wish to increase the percentage of renewable energy from wind or solar power,” said ECN’s Wouter Engels, inventor of Energy Train. “This will make it possible to decommission coal and gas power stations, because they will no longer be needed.”
While it would be a hugely expensive project to establish, ECN says Energy Train could address peaks and troughs in the supply and demand at one tenth of the usual costs of large scale energy storage.
“… even with the large investment costs due to the construction, initial calculations show that this solution has the potential to be significantly cheaper than the alternatives being developed,” according to Mr Engels.
ECN is currently seeking to form a consortium of knowledge and industrial parties to take the idea to proof-concept-stage.
ECN is the largest energy research institute in the Netherlands, employing around 500 staff. Among its other current renewable energy related projects is Meteomast IJmuiden, which aims to collect information for preparation of new offshore wind farms in regions designated in the Netherlands’ National Water Plan.
Last year, ECN introduced an advanced control system for wind turbines that individually adjusts blades, making it possible to construct larger wind turbines generating up to 13% more electricity.
