The Cyprus Institute, in collaboration with Baromar - an innovative energy storage company - announces the commencement of a joint research project on energy storage to be conducted at the PROTEAS Research Facility of The Cyprus Institute. This research initiative represents the largest private sector investment in a research project ever made in Cyprus and serves as a precursor of new collaborations in the renewable energy and energy storage sectors.

The two parties will install and test an innovative system to store renewable energy in compressed air stored in underwater tanks. The terrestrial infrastructure will be placed inside the PROTEAS facility, while the tanks will be placed on the seabed at a depth of about 100m and tethered to the surface through a flexible pipe transporting the air.

This pilot system will test the technical and economic feasibility of such a solution and pave the way for groundbreaking technologies to break into the global market for energy storage, particularly solutions targeting longer-duration storage. This will be the first compressed air energy storage project constructed in the EU in the past 50 years. The Cyprus Institute will test the technology alongside Baromar and integrate it with its systems of recovering and storing heat to increase the efficiency of the process.

Baromar is a global company that has developed a simple, cheap, environmentally friendly energy storage solution. Operation of the project in PROTEAS is scheduled for next year. Baromar will then continue with commercial projects, which are simple to scale up and will provide large amounts of energy (>200MW) for a long duration (>8h), helping economies reach their green transition goals and significantly reduce electricity prices to consumers.

The Cyprus Institute continues to be a bridge between scientific research and the needs of the real economy through its expertise and its research infrastructures, like PROTEAS. The implementation of such innovative research projects is the most effective way to drive economic investments and create new employment opportunities. This project highlights the institute's commitment to advancing renewable energy and energy storage technologies by fostering public-private partnerships, which drive technological innovation through scientific research.