India’s NTPC, Energy Dome work on carbon battery storage rollout

NTPC Ltd, India’s largest integrated power generation company, has launched a CO2 battery energy storage project at its Kudgi super thermal power station in Bijapur district, in Karnataka state.
NETRA, NTPC’s R&D division, will oversee the project in collaboration with Triveni Turbine and Italian CO2 battery technology company Energy Dome.
NTPC Kudgi will host a CO2 battery with 160 MWh of energy storage capacity. The project will support NTPC’s strategy to adopt long-duration energy storage technology for cost-effective, round-the-clock, green power as it expands its renewable energy capacity.
Energy Dome’s CO2 battery technology does not use lithium or rare-earth elements. Instead, it relies on readily available components from established supply chains, aligning with the Indian government’s Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India) initiatives.
Unlike electrochemical battery energy storage systems, the CO2 battery operates on specialized electro-mechanical turbomachinery. It follows a closed Brayton thermodynamic cycle, using anhydrous CO2 as the process fluid. The system stores and releases electricity by shifting CO2 between vapor and liquid states.
“With several advantages, including very long lifetime (of more than 25 years); no need for critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt; topography-agnostic; minimal performance degradation, unlike BESS [battery energy storage systems], where intricate electrochemistry is involved; and very high depth of discharge (100%), successful demonstration of this technology shall open new vistas in the field of electrical energy storage,” said Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director of NTPC.
Energy Dome CEO Claudio Spadacini said that the CO2 battery will further advance NTPC’s decarbonization goals and round-the-clock power delivery while strengthening India’s local supply chain through domestic sourcing.
From pv magazine India.