Energy Dome

Stories

Italy stores grid power in giant CO2 dome batteries

Operating first commercial plant; roughly 30 GWh global pipeline

A white dome the size of seven soccer fields squats over the industrial zone of Ottana, Sardinia, holding 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. It is the business end of the world's first commercial CO2 battery, a 20-megawatt plant that stores 200 megawatt-hours of grid power by compressing the gas into a liquid that is later released through a turbine.

Updated Oct 26

AI data centers push grid batteries past the 4-hour ceiling

Money Moves

As of September 2026: Building 19 MW CO2 battery in Arizona

Grid batteries came with a four-hour ceiling. Now the companies with the fastest-growing electricity demand on Earth, the AI data-center operators, are buying batteries that discharge for 10 hours and, in one case, 100: Meta reserved up to 100 gigawatt-hours from Noon Energy, while Google contracted a 300-megawatt iron-air system in Minnesota and a zinc array in West Virginia.

Updated Sep 18