Why are we doing this?
Decarbonization of the electricity grid is an essential component to solving climate change and recognizing this, a tremendous effort is underway to bring renewable generation onto the grid, such as wind and solar.
However, grid decarbonization today is at an impasse. The intermittency of renewable generators are causing ever larger power swings on the grid, leading to blackouts and forced curtailments. Without a cost-effective electricity storage solution to buffer those swings and "shift" renewable power to when the grids needs it, renewables will be nothing but a niche source of clean power.
Water is a vital energy resource and can be utilized to efficiently store electricity at extremely large capacities. Pumped hydro is by far the largest and most cost-effective form of energy storage today (over 100 GW worldwide). However, due to dependency on terrain, pumped hydro could not be widely implemented, until Quidnet.