Nevada: First-Of-Its-Kind Rail Energy Storage Project

April 30th, 2016

Awake Goy

Nevada: First-Of-Its-Kind Rail Energy Storage Project

April 29th, 2016

The newest entrant into the energy storage market bears a passing resemblance to cutting edge 19th century technology.

It is a rail car with no passengers or freight that goes nowhere. But if the California company working on this technology is right, its rail cars could make big inroads in the energy storage market.

At heart, though, the concept is simple. Electricity powers an electric motor in a locomotive that hauls a heavy load up hill. Sitting at the top of the hill, the rail cars store energy. When the energy is needed, the cars are released to roll down hill and the electric motor runs in reverse to generate electricity.

The company, ARES, is a start-up based in Santa Barbara that is named after its technology, Advanced Rail Energy Storage.

Any resemblance to 19th century rail technology belies the high tech workings of the system and the fact that ARES holds three patents for its technology.

The same electro-mechanical principle that powers the ARES system supplies the regenerative braking power in electric vehicles like a Toyota Prius or in wayside regenerative braking systems such as the one being installed on the metropolitan Philadelphia commuter rail line: When an induction motor that powers a train or car is reversed, it produces electricity.

ARES now hopes to put those principles to work in Nevada where it just won approval from the Bureau of Land Management for its first commercial project.

ARES wants to lay a nearly 5.5 mile track up an 8 degree slope, gaining about 2,000 feet top to bottom. ARES would then put up to seven 8,600-ton trains on the track with each train comprising two locomotives and four rail cars. The entire system, including substation and control systems, would occupy about 43 acres of public land near Pahrump in Clark and Nye Counties.

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