The intent of this claim is to argue that the launch system’s rotating, magnetically levitated screws can function as a grid-scale energy-storage asset when the system is idle, and that this dual use taps into a large and rapidly growing market for storage that addresses the intermittency of wind and solar power. Grid-scale storage is increasingly recognized as essential for integrating high shares of variable renewables, because it can absorb excess energy when wind and solar output is high and release it later to meet demand, provide frequency regulation, defer transmission upgrades, and improve overall reliability. Recent policy and technical overviews emphasize that storage enables renewables to make a steady contribution to the grid despite their inherently intermittent character, by shifting energy in time and providing ancillary services such as frequency control and reserve capacity. (McKinsey & Company)

The market value of grid-scale storage is now substantial. One recent industry analysis estimates the global market for grid-scale electricity storage technologies at about 40.7 billion USD in 2024, with projected growth to roughly 151 billion USD by 2029. (Research and Markets) Within that overall space, grid-scale battery storage alone is estimated around 10–13 billion USD in the mid-2020s, with sustained double-digit annual growth driven largely by renewable deployment. (Grand View Research) Analysts expect total energy-storage markets (all technologies) to reach on the order of 170 billion USD by the early 2030s. (CoherentMI) Flywheel energy-storage systems occupy a smaller but non-trivial niche within this broader market: multiple recent reports place the global flywheel segment in the hundreds of millions to roughly one billion USD in 2024, with projections that it will approximately double by the early 2030s. (Fortune Business Insights) This combination of large overall storage demand and a growing specialized market for high-power, short-duration storage indicates that there is substantial economic value for any infrastructure that can act as a grid-connected kinetic-energy store.

The mechanical core of the launcher—a set of large, magnetically levitated screws spinning in evacuated tubes—resembles a flywheel energy-storage system in every essential respect. Like a conventional flywheel, each screw is a massive rotor supported on near-frictionless magnetic bearings, operating in a high vacuum to minimize aerodynamic drag. During normal launch operations, the screw train is accelerated to high rotational speeds to deliver mechanical power to the adaptive nut and launch sled. During non-launch periods, the same hardware can be operated reversibly: grid power accelerates the screws to store energy as rotational kinetic energy, and later the screws are decelerated regeneratively, driving the linear motor/generator system as a generator to feed power back into the grid. The energy stored in such a system scales with the rotor’s mass moment of inertia and the square of its angular speed, exactly as in a conventional flywheel; the evacuated environment and magnetic suspension minimize standby losses, and the existing power electronics and linear motor windings provide the bidirectional interface needed to absorb or inject power in response to grid commands.

Current commercial flywheel installations aimed at grid services provide a useful benchmark for the economic value of this capability. A typical grid flywheel unit is designed to deliver high power for short durations (often around 15 minutes), with capital costs reported in the range of roughly 1,000–3,000 USD per kW of power capability and on the order of 1,000–1,500 USD per kWh of stored energy, depending on design and application. (CoherentMI) Utility-scale plants based on multiple flywheel units have been built specifically to provide frequency-regulation services to regional transmission operators, demonstrating that such assets can earn revenue in existing markets for fast-response ancillary services. (Sandia National Laboratories) A launcher installation capable of delivering tens to hundreds of megawatts of power through its screw drive for several minutes at a time would therefore have an implied replacement value in the hundreds of millions of dollars if procured as a dedicated flywheel-storage plant, and could participate in the same markets. By operating as a grid-connected energy-storage facility between launch events—converting intermittent wind and solar into steady, dispatchable power—the system can capture a share of the rapidly growing grid-storage market, generating ongoing revenue that helps offset its capital cost while simultaneously improving the viability of renewable generation on the host grid.