SOLUTION / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Ruden is developing underground energy storage for renewables
- Published 7 November 2022; updated 21 September 2026; estimated reading time 2 minutes. The quick-information panel marks the solution “Under development”; listed under Battery / Integration and Energy / Geothermal energy.
- Ruden’s iHEAT is a proposed large-scale underground storage system for renewable electricity. It extends the company’s HEAT technology: active reservoir engineering, including cementing/enhancing fractures, is intended to create a high-enthalpy underground reservoir beneath a renewable-energy site. Heat would be stored at depths of 200–400 metres and temperatures up to 170 °C, then converted back into electricity and supplied to the grid.
- The concept is intended to address renewable intermittency and limitations of surface battery systems, such as land requirements and mineral needs. Potential sites named include wind farms, solar stations and waste-incineration plants. Apart from power generation equipment, the system is described as entirely underground.
- Development status: the page explicitly says the concept is under development, so the described storage capacity and electricity-generation benefits are prospective, not demonstrated performance.
- The page cites a McKinsey estimate that global energy storage could reach 1,000 GW in 20 years. Ruden, founded in 2007, was developing its HEAT system at Kvitebjørn Energi in Tromsø and says its LEAT geothermal system is installed at Norwegian projects.
- Linked to SDGs 7 (Affordable and clean energy), 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) and 11 (Sustainable cities and communities), conditional on successful development.
- Contact: Helene Ree Ruden, Director, helene@rudenas.com. Company: RUDEN AS, Mariusbakken 1D, 1628 Engelsviken, Norway; rudenas.com. A phone-number reveal control is present.