Sizable Energy Featured in the Latest Episode of Playground’s Lab to Launch

“We’ve been extremely lucky at Sizable Energy. We’ve brought together not only brilliant engineers, but people who share our values and our vision. Our goal is to give humanity a new tool to keep the grid alive during this period of transition. Sometimes, to tackle the impossible, you just need to look at it from a different perspective and make it work.”

— Dr. Manuele Aufiero, CEO of Sizable Energy

Sizable Energy is featured in the latest episode of Lab to Launch, a video series presented and produced by Playground Global, filmed at Playground’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The series explores how founders take deep-tech innovations from the lab to real-world deployment.

In the episode, Dr. Manuele Aufiero, CEO of Sizable Energy, walks through the thinking behind reinventing pumped hydro and adapting it for offshore deployment to enable scalable long-duration energy storage.

The conversation explores why long-duration energy storage remains a critical missing element of the energy transition. While renewable generation technologies such as wind and solar are now mature, grid reliability still depends on storage solutions capable of operating sustainably over long time horizons.

Pumped hydro already represents the vast majority of global energy storage capacity, but its expansion on land is constrained by geography, permitting complexity, and long construction timelines. Sizable’s approach builds on this proven technology by moving it offshore, where space is abundant and closer to where energy demand is concentrated.

A key element of the system is the use of saturated sea salt brine as the working fluid. Its properties (low corrosion due to minimal oxygen solubility) allow for efficient energy storage while creating a naturally protective environment for structural materials, supporting long operational lifetimes with reduced maintenance requirements.

As highlighted in the episode, Sizable’s technology is designed from the outset for real-world deployment. The system relies on widely available materials and places strong emphasis on minimizing offshore operational complexity, from installation through long-term maintenance interval.