[LordHeini]

That research is not independent but made by a bancrupt startup of gravity based energy storage.

And it still does not answer how the construction and running costs are calculated.

Only if those are as low as claimed (which I highly doubt) something like this might be feasible.

This tech just does not scale well.

Digging holes is stupid expensive. Moving giant masses is not trivial and to double the storage capacity you need twice the weight or twice the height.

The energy density is way too low.

The only thing run by weights have been those old grandfather clocks. And even there the weights got replaced by springs and in the end batteries.

[syllable_studio]

My understanding is that Dr Oliver Schmidt was hired by Heindl to do this research independently. It explains everything on the link I sent, so I didn't mean to imply that he wasn't hired to do it, but he's a third party. There is other research like the 1984 U.S. PNNL that validates how underground storage is estimated to be cost effective.

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6517343