Mine Storage has secured land rights for another Swedish project. The company has made considerable progress in building a pipeline of potential energy storage sites. The latest site is Vintjärn located in Dalarna, Sweden where they have signed land rights agreements with Stora Enso and Kopparfors Skogar.
Retired mines can play a crucial part in securing a missing piece of the puzzle for a sustainable energy system, namely an economical and scalable solution for long duration energy storage (LDES).
Their large-scale energy storage solution uses retired mines or quarries and turns them into circular energy storage facilities. The company has investigated the mine in Vintjärn which could become a 30 MWh mine storage. With 30MWh energy in a single charging cycle, Vintjärn could become a valuable contribution to the regional energy system.
“The region around the Vintjärn mine sees a lot of both existing and planned wind production and we believe that this specific site has the potential to both enable more regional energy production whilst maintaining a stabile grid, and also to collaborate with specific wind developers to improve their business model”, says Thomas Johansson, Co-founder and CEO of Mine Storage.
The technology in a mine storage is based on well-proven hydro power equipment whereby energy is stored by pumping water from the mine up to ground level and energy is released by letting the same water flow back into the mine via turbines that generate electricity. The closed loop system utilizes existing infrastructure which makes it an attractive solution to many landowners.
“It’s great when large landowners such as Stora Enso and Kopparfors Skogar have an innovative approach to their role in society. Many of them are already engaged in providing solutions related to the energy transition. Making use of retired mines on their land is yet another possibility. Moreover, with a very low impact on the surrounding environment the mine storage concept doesn’t interfere with their core business”, says Maria Säfström, Head of Environment and Permitting at Mine Storage.
“This is an exciting project that connects very well with our strategy to develop new business and broaden the benefits of land ownership. Contributing to another piece of the puzzle in the renewable energy transition and being able to reuse the mines for such a purpose feels great,” says Erik Rost, Director Real Estate at Stora Enso
Mine Storage now plans to continue with further tests after which they will be able to further inform local stakeholders and the public in more detail about the project development.
For more information, please contact:
Thomas Johansson, Co-Founder and CEO