Adam Semel, Managing Partner, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) discusses how clean energy-storing skyscrapers can provide a missing link in the transition to a clean power grid

More than a decade since the United Nations declared the renewable energy transition as one of its Sustainable Development Goals, we have seen enormous progress in clean energy. Governments around the world have set policy to accelerate the development of wind and solar power—reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, the largest contributor to climate change. By 2030, the world’s energy system will look profoundly different than it does today; by the decade’s end, renewables’ share of the global mix will approach 50 percent.

This momentum is good news for the building industry, which has focused on electrification—equipping increasingly energy-efficient buildings to run on a clean power grid—as an essential strategy to achieve net-zero goals. But a new energy crisis may be looming. While more renewable power is coming online, demand is expected to soon outpace the available supply of clean energy. We are already starting to see strains on local grids as electric vehicles are being adopted more widely. The expansion of energy-intensive computing technologies, such as AI, poses further challenges to managing the supply and distribution of electricity. 

The available supply of renewable power also introduces a fresh challenge: energy supply does not always coincide with demand day-to-day. On days when the sun is not shining or the wind isn’t blowing, how can entire cities expect to draw reliable power from wind or solar? Even while renewable sources are generating more power than we need in some geographies, these limitations require us to maintain other non-renewable sources in the mix. Storage solutions exist, including lithium ion batteries and pumped hydropower, but to address the emerging demand and further accelerate the transition to renewables, we need safe, cost effective, scalable technologies.

That is where Energy Vault, a company specializing in long-duration storage solutions, sees a tremendous opportunity. The company has developed innovative long-duration energy storage structures based on gravity, storing it to be distributed to the grid when it is needed. Having already built several such installations, Energy Vault sought out SOM’s design and engineering expertise to figure out how to make these structures taller, amplifying their potential energy storage capacity. We quickly came to understand the impact of this technology for energy security, but also we marveled at the possibilities for how skyscrapers as “batteries” could contribute to a sustainable built environment.

Gravity energy storage systems (GESS) use surplus energy to lift heavy weights, which creates potential energy that can later be converted into electricity when lowered to the ground. Unlike pumped hydro storage facilities, which can only be built on suitable natural sites, GESS installations could be constructed anywhere—opening up new opportunities for clean energy storage and distribution in urban environments. The taller the structure, the more energy that can be stored.

In addition to the benefits for a reliable energy grid, what excites us about gravity energy storage is that this technology could help to offset the carbon impact of tall building construction. A tall building equipped with GESS could pay back the building’s embodied carbon footprint in record time—within two to four years—by turning the building itself into a renewable energy source. Incorporating these technologies could change the very definition of what a tall building contributes to a city, something we at SOM have been exploring for more than 80 years. Beyond providing commercial or residential spaces, supertall structures would become critical infrastructure for a clean-energy future. With the building industry responsible for 40 percent of carbon emissions worldwide, a solution like GESS could be an important tool in accelerating not just the energy transition, but also the transition to a net-zero carbon built environment.