Renewell Energy https://renewellenergy.com Clean Energy Solutions Tue, 05 Mar 2024 16:26:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Long-Duration Energy Storage Connects the Wind and Solar Dots in Texas https://renewellenergy.com/long-duration-energy-storage-connects-the-wind-and-solar-dots-in-texas/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:32:15 +0000 https://renewellenergy.com/?p=4067 ... Long-Duration Energy Storage Connects the Wind and Solar Dots in Texas]]> A new resource for businesses seeking clean energy is emerging in the form of long-duration energy storage systems. Long-duration systems can produce electricity from wind and solar resources on a steady basis, regardless of the weather or time of day. They can also offer additional benefits including safety, ease of management and avoidance of toxic substances.

Read the full article at Triple Pundit

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Renewell Brings Energy to Texas’ Clean Power Efforts https://renewellenergy.com/renewell-brings-energy-to-texas-clean-power-efforts/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:27:57 +0000 https://renewellenergy.com/?p=4062 Renewell Energy is taking an innovative approach to repurposing old wells for new energy storage.

If Energy Vault’s gravity-base system ever gets to Texas, it may already have some company. The US startup Renewell, which has offices in Texas and California, is marketing a gravity-based energy storage system that can be retrofitted into idle oil and gas wells.

Called Gravity Well, the system doubles as an abandoned well-sealing and monitoring operation.

Read the full article at CleanTechnica.com

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Oil well project would commercialize gravity energy storage https://renewellenergy.com/oil-well-project-would-commercialize-gravity-energy-storage/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:20:40 +0000 https://renewellenergy.com/?p=4057 Kern County oil fields look more and more like a viable place for storing renewable energy to help balance the state power grid.

Bakersfield startup Renewell Energy is working on its first commercial system using renewably powered winches to lift weights from near the bottom of oil wells. Later, after the sun goes down and wind stops, lowering the weights will run a generator that feeds the grid.

It’s at least the second technology proposed for repurposing local oil fields to cover gaps in the availability of solar and wind power. Another Bakersfield company, Premier Resource Management LLC, hopes to turn depleted oil reservoirs into synthetic geothermal storage.

Read full article at Bakersfield.com

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Oil Wells’ Next Act https://renewellenergy.com/oil-wells-next-act/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:13:30 +0000 https://renewellenergy.com/?p=4051 There are a staggering number of defunct oil and gas wells across the US. Renewell Energy sees them as an untapped climate solution.

The fan club for abandoned oil and gas wells is an exceedingly small one, but Kemp Gregory might just be the president. Where others see an eyesore or a source of rogue methane emissions, Gregory sees opportunity.

Standing next to a 4,000-foot-deep well on the outskirts of Bakersfield, California, he demonstrates why. A 3,000-pound weight is suspended on a cable deep below the surface. With the push of a button, Gregory starts a small motor turning, drawing the weight up from the well’s maw until it reaches a predetermined height. Now it’s more than a heavy weight; it’s a source of potential energy. Gregory pushes another button and the weight begins its descent, releasing that energy in the form of electricity that can be fed onto the grid.

Read full article on Bloomberg News

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Genius Idea to Recycle Oil Wells https://renewellenergy.com/genius-idea-to-recycle-oil-wells/ Fri, 12 Aug 2022 13:48:00 +0000 https://renewellenergy.com/?p=4074 Renewell Energy has come up with a really cool way to repurpose oil wells. 

There are more than 1 million oil wells in the U.S. – many already abandoned.  And a lot of those abandoned wells are leaking damaging greenhouse gases into the air.  Renewell proposes capping these wells and using them as gravity batteries for renewable energy.  I’ll explain.

In order to create electricity, you need to get a something spinning – think of water or air flowing to make some apparatus spin.  This spinning creates electricity.  Enter the oil wells.  These wells are comprised of steel shafts that are roughly 7 inches in diameter and often go down a mile or more into the ground.  Renewell’s technology takes a weight that is attached to a very long cable that is attached to an electric generation mechanism.  When power is needed, all you do is drop the weight down the well and cause the generator to spin.  When you do the math on this, roughly 300,000 wells could create enough electricity to power the U.S. for 2 weeks.  That’s a lot of electricity!  Now, to get the weights back up to the top of the well, you need electricity.  That electricity is simply created by the sun and wind.  So these oil wells are repurposed to act as batteries when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.  And these batteries don’t involve chemicals.  Just gravity.  All clean and all renewable.  No pollution.  Genius!

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Converting Wells to Energy Storage https://renewellenergy.com/converting-wells-to-energy-storage/ Mon, 25 Apr 2022 08:29:06 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/?p=1668 ... Converting Wells to Energy Storage]]> Renewell Energy publishes a white paper on the logistics behind their technology that converts oil and gas wells to energy storage.

Natural gas and oil wells are ubiquitous in our lands, from the urban landscape of Los Angeles to the rolling plains of West Texas. These wells are a testament to the widespread and historical significance of fossil fuels in providing energy for the world. Remediation of these wells after the end of their productive lives has proven an ongoing challenge. As a result, there are presently over two million so-called idle oil and gas wells in North America alone. This paper describes the processes and challenges related to these idle oil and gas wells, and lays out a beneficial solution: converting idle oil and gas wells to energy storage for the electricity grid. A typical oil and gas well has a productive lifetime of about 20 to 30 years. When the value of the oil produced no longer exceeds the cost to produce it, the well stops producing and becomes what is called an idle well. Once a well reaches the end of its life, it must be retired and remediated through a process known as plug and abandonment (P&A). P&A often involves a plug and cement at the bottom of the well, but, in the United States, state regulations determine the particulars of the P&A process. Once it is properly sealed and has passed certain time-sensitive tests, nature is allowed to reclaim the well area.

Converting Oil and Gas Wells to Energy Storage | By Paola Vega Jaquez, 2021

Read the Full White Paper

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Stanford students turn oil wells into batteries https://renewellenergy.com/stanford-students-turn-oil-wells-into-batteries-bring-solar-to-nigeria-in-energy-entrepreneurship-class/ Mon, 18 Apr 2022 08:23:45 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/?p=1445
This article was published by on the Stanford News website on May 14, 2020, and was written by Matthew Vollrath.
ARTICLE EXCERPT FROM STANFORD NEWS | BY MATTHEW VOLLRATH

In the winter of 2019, Kemp Gregory, a graduate student in Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, got a call from Walker Colt. Friends since childhood, they had both begun their careers as petroleum engineers in Houston, Texas, but hoped to transition to something greener. Now, Colt had an idea for how they could do that.

Renewell Energy’s engineering lead Stefan Streckfus, left, and co-founder and team lead Kemp Gregory. (Image credit: Diana Go)

“He said we should take inactive oil wells and turn them into energy storage devices,” recalled Gregory, who at first thought his friend’s idea was a stretch.

But the more the pair researched, the more sense it seemed to make. The United States has 3.1 million inactive oil wells. Decommissioning these wells is hugely expensive, so oil companies are eager to pass them off. Also, oil fields are connected to power grids, so the infrastructure for bringing in electricity and sending it back out already exists.

Colt was inspired by something called a Gravity Light, a reading lamp for off-gridders powered by a descending weight. With a bigger weight, he suggested, they could use the same principle to store power on a large scale. Gregory pointed out that one piece of oil-drilling equipment, the electric submersible pump, generates power when it accidentally spins backward. By exploiting this flaw, they could potentially create a system similar to pumped-storage hydropower, he said.

After several weeks of back-and-forth, the pair settled on a few promising designs. With some quick calculations, they discovered that their plan could generate just enough power to work.

It was time to get serious. Gregory knew about a course on energy entrepreneurship at Stanford, one that taught students how to create a viable business, get advice from industry experts and, ultimately, attract funding.



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Stanford men find an unlikely home in East Texas at PCDworks’ Hard Tech Base Camp https://renewellenergy.com/stanford-men-find-an-unlikely-home-in-east-texas-at-pcdworks-hard-tech-base-camp-2/ Tue, 05 Apr 2022 10:50:34 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/?p=1335 ... Stanford men find an unlikely home in East Texas at PCDworks’ Hard Tech Base Camp]]>
This article was published by in the Tyler Morning Telegraph on November 1, 2021, and was written by By Jessica Dillon.
ARTICLE EXCERPT FROM TYLER MORNING TELEGRAPH | BY JESSICA DILLON

Stefan Streckfus and Kemp Gregory trade trash talk across a ping-pong table in Palestine, their words flying over the net with every ball-to-paddle connection, and intensifying when one of the duo misses, and has to scramble after the ball before the game can resume.

The two men, one from North Carolina, the other from Houston, met while in graduate school at Stanford University, where they worked to develop and create an innovative energy model through a rigorous, auditions-based course labeled Stanford Energy Ventures.

While in class, they spent hours huddled over calculations or working through logistical struggles, meeting eight to 10 times each week with industry experts who sometimes tore apart their proposals and offered priceless insight on their plan for Renewell Energy, a startup that aims to transform the 3.1 million inactive oil wells in the United States into storage devices for renewable resources.

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The Storage Potential of Gravity Wells https://renewellenergy.com/the-storage-potential-of-gravity-wells/ Mon, 28 Mar 2022 09:46:37 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/?p=1194 ... The Storage Potential of Gravity Wells]]> An excerpt from our white paper on the storage potential of gravity wells.

As the penetration of variable renewable energy resources increases in the United States, the availability of energy storage becomes more important to maintain grid reliability. Gravity energy storage is a mechanical storage technology that accumulates and releases energy due to an object’s change in height, otherwise known as vertical displacement. Pumped hydro storage is the most popular gravity storage technology yet it requires very specific geographies. This white paper explores the potential for using the massive depth and relative abundance of inactive oil and gas wells for gravity storage–thus converting them into “gravity wells”–and the feasibility of using such technology for large-scale electricity storage.

Dante Issac Aleman | 2021
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Oil wells for clean energy production and storage https://renewellenergy.com/oil-wells/ Tue, 07 Dec 2021 04:41:07 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/2021/12/07/post14-great-travel-backpacks-for-your-next-trip/ That’s what Kemp Gregory, CEO, and Stefan Streckfus, CTO, of Renewell Energy, are actively working towards.

Renewell Energy’s timing may be opportune as they’re working on a prototype in Texas and it should be ready to test in mid-July as the White House’s pending infrastructure plan includes about $17B to remediate oil wells, which is what Renewell would like to do.

Reusing oil wells certainly seems better than just leaving them be or destroying them. Especially, as reports have shown, up to 40 percent of oil wells pollute methane or carcinogenic chemicals. So, how could Renewell renew the two million or so U.S. oil wells that are currently inactive and remain unplugged as well as all of those that will soon be defunct? Here’s the plan:

First, seal inactive oil wells at the bottom to isolate the associated hydrocarbon reservoirs to stop pollution from coming up.

Second, flush out the fluids in the inactive oil wells and replace those with clean water and helpful additives.

Next, install Renewell’s regenerative winch with a long cylindrical weight held by a wire. (Say what?)

Renewell’s forthcoming prototype is intended to show they can charge their energy storage device in these oil wells by lifting a cylindrical weight to the top of an oil well which converts energy to potential energy. An advantage here would be that the mechanical storage of energy could be stored for as long as the weight is suspended.

To produce energy, Renewell’s regenerative winch would lower the weight to the bottom of the oil well so the winch’s motor would move in reverse and would act as a generator to produce electrical energy. Again, one of the benefits of producing energy with the lifting and falling of weight is that this mechanical process could be paused or started at any time.

The team at Renewell is working to finalize a commercial design and to get to full-scale production with pre-seed funding. However, the team acknowledged they will need to overcome regulatory hurdles from organizations such as CalGEM that regulate oil wells as no one up to this point ever considered adapting these wells for clean energy production and storage.

So, incentives in place for these oil wells are set up to ‘pull’ oil instead of storing energy which means once an oil well stops producing oil or gas, it is penalized to prompt the clean-up of the non-operational well. Renewell Energy is working with CalGEM and other regulatory agencies to overcome this penalty that if left in place could negatively affect the financial return on investment, or ROI, of their clean energy and storage solution.

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Stanford almuni create prototype to strengthen power grid at business incubator in East Texas https://renewellenergy.com/renewell-in-the-news/ Tue, 07 Dec 2021 04:41:07 +0000 https://renewell.flywheelsites.com/2021/12/07/tulum-is-utterly-terrible/ ... Stanford almuni create prototype to strengthen power grid at business incubator in East Texas]]> Through the technology she wields, old oil and gas wells will eventually become a source of renewable energy to strengthen power grids. From the minds of two men who met while in graduate school at Stanford University, this large piece of machinery is a prototype of what could revolutionize renewable energy storage methods..

It all began in the woods near Palestine, where co-founders Kemp Gregory, 31, and Stefan Streckfus, 32, lived and worked at product design and innovation firm PCDworks‘ Hard Tech Base Camp.

Gregory and Streckfus are co-founders of the startup company Renewell Energy, which seeks to transform 3.1 million inactive oil wells in the United States into storage devices for renewable resources. Their pursuit of renewable energy began two years ago.

The fundamental purpose of Artemis Prime, which Gregory and Streckfus jokingly refer to as their first-born daughter, is to be a prototype for a concept unique to the startup: gravity-based energy storage in oil and gas wells.

Her name hearkens back to a Greek goddess and sounds similar to a character from “Transformers.”

“We started calling it Artemis Prime because it sounded like Optimus Prime, and it’s the first one ever, so prime doesn’t sound that absurd,” Gregory said. “Now, she’s Artemis Prime, Artie, AP, first-born daughter.”

Gregory, CEO of Renewell Energy, explained as Artemis Prime’s wire rope drops down into the deep hole of a former well, potential energy can be stored.

“We’re going to seal that reservoir up and then we’re going to use the rest of the well,” he said. “Now, we’ve just got this deep hole in the ground, and that deep hole in the ground … is what we’re after and it’s because that huge vertical drop creates the opportunity to store a lot of potential energy.”

As the rope spins, it is connected to a gearbox that’s a part of a motor. When that motor spins in reverse, it becomes a generator creating power.

“It’s releasing electricity back to the grid. It’ll be plugged into a pole and wire that feeds into the big grid,” Gregory said, adding as the machine goes back down the well, the energy is reeled up again.

On a dry-erase board, Gregory demonstrated the need to collect renewable energy like the wind that can be stored to help the power grid.

He noted the highest use of electricity is from 4 to 7 p.m., while the wind often blows the most late at night when the demand is down.

“In the time before wind and solar (energies), we would just control our power plans to match this demand precisely,” Gregory said. “We’d turn them up and they needed to go up, and turn them down when they needed to go down.”

The wind is unpredictable and its timing or supply doesn’t typically match energy consumers’ demand, he explained.

“We can absorb this energy (by lifting the weight from the well). We’ll be ready for that energy stored to drop into this space,” Gregory said referencing collecting wind energy at night to use for other parts of the day.

Streckfus, Renewell Energy chief technical officer, said while the winter storm in February made people more aware of the need for power grid improvements, many people over the last decade have tried to come up with ways of energy storage that can be done cheaply and shift the supply to the demand.

Artemis Prime has definitely completed its goal, Streckfus said, adding it’s validating to see the process run smoothly.

“Everything has behaved the way we wanted it to behave and that means it’s time to try it in the field,” he said.

Streckfus said it has been nice to see the worlds of the oil industry and renewable energy coming together while working on the project. The project will give oil wells a second life and reduce the big costs related to dismantling an old well.

Next step

They will take Artemis Prime to an oil well north of Dallas in about a month to be converted into an energy storage system, Gregory said.

“Then we’ll be a real startup,” he added with a laugh.

Gregory said he and Streckfus are always making a joke after each milestone about asking if their company is a real startup yet.

After field-testing goes well, then it’s time to build a bigger one and try it in a lab. That will be the commercial project that’s cheap enough to actually make some money, Streckfus said.

The pair said they feel a sense of humility as they’ve encountered their share of high and low points during the process before reaching the milestone of producing a prototype.

“You don’t know where it’s going to go, but it’s full of the most adventure and that’s for sure,” Gregory said. “I think we’re just going to have ups from here on out.”

As the journey continues, Streckfus still has a level of excitement. Despite thinking they would be done sooner, he’s thankful for the valuable lessons that obstacles and difficulties provided.

‘An amazing place to be’

Thanks to their time at PCDworks, the duo has been able to work on multiple aspects of the company, such as fundraising and speaking with investors, while completing their prototype.

PCDworks provides people like Gregory and Streckfus with the resources of testing labs, engineering shops along with 15 scientists, engineers and technical development experts.

The company’s website says it is a “New Product Development Design and Innovation firm specializing in the development of game changing solutions and technologies,” and co-founder and vice president of PCDworks Mike Rainone said the projects accepted to be a part of the firm must be well-vetted and viable.

Rainone said the key to finding a successful new product is finding a solution to a problem that makes people’s lives crazy.

PCDworks began in 1997 in Arlington with Rainone and his wife Donna, but moved out to its current location in 2000.

Streckus first met Rainone several years ago before he went to Stanford while was working on a broiler for Burger King. Streckfus worked at Burger King for about six years, designing, sourcing and commercializing kitchen equipment.

A company wanted to develop a new broiler for the fast-food chain and was using PCDworks as a resource. Streckus just quit Burger King and started doing consulting for that same company working on the broiler.

“I got to come out and be in this room working on some cool broiler concepts,” Streckfus said, referencing the conference room at PCDworks. “When I came out, I fell in love with the place.”

Streckfus said the campus provides the same sort of calm lifestyle as in his hometown in North Carolina.

Rainone has become somewhat of a proud papa to Gregory and Streckfus.

“They’re wonderful young people. They’ve done this whole thing and raised a lot of money and got investors,” Rainone said.

Getting to work with people with brilliant minds and those willing to take their time to be supportive has been amazing, Streckfus said.

“There’s a bit of beauty of humanity that’s been in this experience. I’ve never had to ask so many people for help so frequently, which is pretty uncomfortable for me to be honest,” he said. “The amount of people that say yes — it’s been thrilling.”

If they didn’t have the PCDworks’ team, Streckfus said he and Gregory would have to become versed in areas outside of their knowledge.

Gregory recalled thinking they would be on the campus for three months at the most.

“Obviously, that was a long time ago, but of all the places to be stuck working on what you want to work on, this is a pretty amazing place to be,” he said. “It’s beautiful aesthetically, but also like Stefan said it’s full of really great people who are willing to help — Mike and Donna being the foremost.”

Streckfus agreed he didn’t foresee staying at PCDworks for long, but it was something they needed. He noted places that focus on hard technology rather than software are hard to find.

“There’s a lot of startups that want software concepts to be developed. There aren’t that many places that support us trying to build the 8,000-pound behemoth,” he said.

PCDworks’ capabilities freed up the duo to do other necessary work and the process was made much more efficient.

“I can go from working on fundraising to working on engineering as long as it takes me to walk from the office to the shop. So about 45 seconds, and that’s amazing,” Gregory said. “I can’t really think of another circumstance in which you could do that.”

Rainone said he hopes to see more folks with well-vetted ideas in need of incubation — like Gregory and Strekfus — come to his campus.

Coming to renewable energy

Gregory and Streckfus studied mechanical engineering as undergraduates. Their paths went differently but later converged toward clean energy.”

Gregory worked for Shell as a completions engineer and traveled to Argentina, Canada and West Texas. He was living in Argentina when he determined he didn’t want to work for a big oil and gas company anymore, but he wanted to stay in energy. He would need a better understanding of clean tech to make a move, so getting a degree made sense, he said.

Streckfus shared a similar sentiment that he knew being an engineer for Burger King wasn’t his desired path. He said he wanted to do something that would have “a more lasting positive impact,” and that took him down the path to renewable energy.

The path has led to the creation of Artemis Prime.

Gregory said the prototype is a one-of-a-kind, and future projects will be called gravity wells.

“When we’re working on it, it’s Artemis Prime Time,” Streckfus added.

For more information, visit pcdworks.com and renewellenergy.com.

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