Ski Lifts Help Open $25 Billion Market for Storing Power:
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Technology developers are shuttling between caves and mountaintops to build a market for utilities set to attract $25 billion in annual investment within a decade.
To store surplus electricity from power plants, they’re trying to squeeze air into salt mines and run empty trains up hills, testing how to harness the energy released when the air bursts out and the cars roll back down. Trials are under way at companies from Germany’s Siemens AG and RWE AG to General Electric Co. and a startup backed by billionaire Bill Gates, which is experimenting with the momentum of ski lifts.