Energy Vault and DG Fuels to support the production of green hydrogen for SAF

Energy Vault Holdings, Inc. (a leader in sustainable, grid-scale energy storage solutions) today announced an increase in scope for its initial energy storage project with DG Fuels LLC in Louisiana.

Previously, Energy Vault and DG Fuels, an emerging leader in renewable hydrogen and biogenic based, synthetic sustainable aviation fuel and diesel fuel, entered into an energy storage system agreement to support the production of green hydrogen for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) across three projects, which have an expected opportunity of up to $520 million in revenue.

Under the terms of the original agreement, Energy Vault agreed to provide 1,600 MWh of energy storage to support DG Fuels across three SAF projects, with the first project originally slated for 500 MWh in Louisiana. In October 2021, Energy Vault invested alongside Black & Veatch and HydrogenPro AS in a financing round for DG Fuels to support its continued development of the first SAF project in Louisiana.

Under the terms of the project expansion, the SAF project is being developed to support up to 73 megawatts (MW) for 16 hours, reflecting a total of 1,168 MWh in storage capacity. The companies plan to follow the Louisiana project with additional projects in British Columbia and Ohio, with an opportunity for total storage capacity of 2,234 MWh overall and up to $737 million in potential project revenue over time.

The increased scope of the Louisiana project was enabled by joint Front End Loading (FEL2) engineering optimization between Energy Vault, DG Fuels and its engineering partners. This optimization resulted in a system efficiency gain of approximately 14% fuel yield to 11,650 barrels per day, and increased behind-the-meter electric power needs by an additional 50 MW (800 MWh). The additional electric power requirements will be supported by up to 200 MWh of storage utilizing Energy Vault’s EVx™ gravity-based energy storage technology, powered by behind-the-meter solar.

Robert Piconi Chairman, Co-Founder and CEO, Energy Vault, said, “This first-of-its kind project is a game changer for the production of sustainable aviation fuels and our EVx™ technology and energy management software platform, which will play a critical role in bringing the project to fruition with sustainable and economic long-duration energy storage.”

Michael C. Darcy, CEO of DG Fuels, said, “At DG Fuels we’ve developed and recently improved our carbon conversion fuel production process that is targeting a 97% carbon conversion efficiency and 2.5% carbon mineralization, which reduces the amount of feedstock required to produce our SAF and lowers our cost of production. All this is to be accomplished without affecting food production. The project is expected to be anchored by our existing and growing list of long-term offtake customers.”