Energy solutions company, Sperra, Los Angeles, Calif., was recently awarded a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office to advance innovation in pumped storage hydropower technologies. In the project, Sperra will design, fabricate, and test a 33’ diameter, 500 kW / 600 kWh energy storage unit off the coast of Southern California.
The DOE funding also unlocks $3.7 million from the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) in the form of a parallel pump and turbine development project run by Fraunhofer IEE and PLEUGER Industries GmbH, the Sperra press release said. The collaborative work of both projects is intended to develop a low-cost subsea energy storage technology that supports electrical grid decarbonization.
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