TECHNOLOGY developed by a Scottish company will be used into an attempt to turn a disused shaft at one of Europe’s deepest mines into the continent’s first full-scale gravity energy store.

Europe’s deepest zinc and copper mine – Pyhasalmi Mine in Finland – descends 1444 metres into the earth.

Owned by Canadian mining corporation First Quantum Minerals, many of its operations have now ended. Edinburgh-based energy storage firm Gravitricity has developed what it says is a unique energy storage system which will be will be part of a move to promote regeneration projects at the mine.

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The local community has set up a special development company, called Callio Pyhajarvi, which signed an agreement to transform a 530-metre deep auxiliary shaft into a full-scale prototype of Gravitricity’s technology.

Known as GraviStore, it raises and lowers heavy weights in underground shafts to offer some of the best characteristics of lithium-ion batteries and pumped hydro storage.

They will now work together to develop the scheme – which would deliver up to 2MW of storage capacity. When there is excess electricity, for example on a windy day, the weight is winched to the top of the shaft ready to generate power.

This weight can then be released when required – in less than a second – and the winches become generators, producing either a large burst of electricity quickly, or releasing it more slowly depending on what is needed.

The project would tie straight into the local electricity grid and provide balancing services to the Finnish network.

Last year, Gravitricity signed an agreement with Swedish-Swiss energy multinational ABB to use ABB’s mine hoist expertise to help accelerate the adoption of underground energy storage. It is anticipated ABB would lend its expertise to the Finnish project, alongside Gravitricity’s other strategic partner, Dutch winch specialists Huisman.

Gravitricity’s executive chairman Martin Wright said: “This project will demonstrate at full scale how our technology can offer reliable long-life energy storage that can capture and store energy during periods of low demand and release it rapidly when required. It will provide a pathway to other commercial projects and allow our solution to be embedded into mine decommissioning activities, offering a potential future for mines approaching the end of their original service life.”

Gravitricity is advancing a number of full-scale GraviStore projects, including a plan to transform state- owned mine infrastructure in the Czech Republic into an energy store.