Construction on the lab, which will be located at the Port Kembla Steelworks in New South Wales, starts this month. It will be co-commissioned with a digital twin.

Bluescope Steel is partnering Green Gravity in the deployment and operation of the Gravity Lab.

The Green Gravity technology revolves around capturing the kinetic energy from dropping weights down a mine shaft.

Green Gravity founder and chief executive officer Mark Swinnerton said the partnership with Bluescope demonstrated the power of large and small enterprises collaborating to achieve a clean energy future.

The Gravity Lab digital twin was developed in partnership with artificial intelligence specialist xAmplify and with support from Nvidia. It will operate in the Nvidia Omniverse framework and be calibrated from physical experimentation.

Introducing digital assets to the Gravity Lab will enable acquired data to validate commercial-scale energy storage systems.

"The capital investment committed to the Gravity Lab will enable some of the most advanced gravitational energy storage research in the world," Swinnerton said.

"The purpose-built facility, to be located at the Port Kembla Steelworks, will be capable of moving 16 separate weighted objects in a sequence to test the capabilities of our technology.

"The important research that will be undertaken at the Gravity Lab will enable power generation capacity and efficiency to be validated in addition to data that will support Green Gravity technology to connect to the power grid at large-scale.

"Recent escalating power prices demonstrate how important it is for innovative Australian companies to commercialise new technology quickly.

"Green Gravity's energy storage technology provides an important option for Australia to take on the energy transition using home-grown technology and home-grown circular economic thinking.

"Solving the power pricing challenge requires collaboration across sectors, innovation and determination.

"Green Gravity's energy storage technology represents a breakthrough in the search for economic long-duration storage of renewable energy.

"By reusing mining assets, costs can be kept low. By using gravity as the fuel we dispense with consuming the critical water, land, and chemicals that other storage technologies rely on."

xAmplify CEO Wayne Gowland said leveraging technology to enable and optimise Green Gravity's gravitational energy system was a market differentiator and key in scaling commercial operations.

"Not only has the digital twin facilitated rapid optimisation of the design but it has established a continuous learning system where data and AI can drive tangible benefits," he said.

Bluescope Australia head of corporate affairs Michael Reay said the synergies with this project were enormous.

"Bluescope has its own goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and has a pathway to the decarbonisation of steelmaking," Reay said.

"We recognise that we are going to need an enormous amount of green renewable energy in the transition and are proud to be supporting Green Gravity in helping to bring their innovative solution to life."