Germany to host world’s first long-duration AirBattery storage project

Germany is set to host the world’s first commercial-scale AirBattery energy storage project, developed by Israel’s Augwind Energy, with commissioning planned between 2027 and 2028. This innovative facility will utilize a mined salt cavern to store compressed air, enabling electricity generation over weeks or even months. Augwind’s Hydraulic Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) system combines pumped hydro and air compression technologies to provide multi-week energy resilience, addressing Europe’s “Dunkelflaute” problem—periods of low renewable output. A single cavern, larger than the Empire State Building, can store 3–8 GWh of electricity, releasing high-pressure air through water chambers to drive turbines when power is needed. The AirBattery offers a sustainable, affordable, and secure energy storage solution by reducing reliance on imported fuels and scarce battery metals, thus mitigating geopolitical and price volatility risks heightened by recent energy shocks in Europe. Its round-trip efficiency is expected to exceed 60 percent in commercial setups, with