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Concrete supercapacitors could let buildings store some of the electricity they use, but the technology is still at the prototype stage. Researchers have demonstrated small carbon-concrete devices and newer miniature prototypes—not a house foundation or commercial building that stores energy at scale.
Can concrete store electricity?
Not by itself in the way a finished battery does. Cement, water and microporous carbon black form an electron-conducting material in the system described in the 2023 study. A working supercapacitor also needs two electrodes, an electrolyte that carries ions, and an insulating separator between the electrodes. The separator prevents direct contact while allowing the device to store electrical charge.
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In the 2023 laboratory study, hydration reactions formed a connected, fractal-like carbon network through the cement matrix. Carbon–cement electrodes saturated with electrolyte and separated by an insulator were tested. An ordinary block of concrete is not therefore a ready-to-use battery. The 2023 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes the material and its laboratory measurements.
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How much energy can energy-storing concrete hold?
The figures reported so far come from different formulations and comparisons, so they should not be treated as one standard product specification.
| Reported result | What it means |
|---|---|
| About 20–220 Wh/m³ | Chanut and colleagues’ 2023 paper gives this projected volumetric storage range, dependent on the carbon black’s surface area. It is a research estimate, not a commercial rating. 2023 PNAS study |
| About 45 m³ for roughly 10 kWh | MIT’s 2023 household example was a scaling calculation based on the early material, not a demonstrated house foundation. MIT News, 2023 |
| More than 2 kWh/m³ | MIT’s 2025 account reports this for a version using organic electrolytes. The value is specific to that research formulation. MIT News, 2025 |
| About 5 m³ for a home’s daily energy | MIT’s 2025 article uses this as an average-home comparison for the newer formulation. It is an illustration, not a tested residential installation or universal estimate for every household. MIT News, 2025 |
MIT characterized the newer ec³ capacity as higher by “an order of magnitude” than the earlier work. That is MIT’s description of its newer research result; the older range and newer organic-electrolyte figure come from materially different formulations and contexts, not a standardized, directly comparable product test.
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Could a house foundation store a day’s worth of energy?
That is a proposed application, not a demonstrated capability of a completed house. The 45 m³ example in MIT’s 2023 coverage and the roughly 5 m³ daily-energy comparison in its 2025 coverage are calculations based on reported research performance. No cited source reports a residential foundation built and tested as an energy-storage system.
MIT’s 2025 coverage points to possible uses in building foundations, walls and slabs, as well as roads, shelters, offshore wind supports and grid-scale storage. Concrete already serves structural and infrastructure roles, so integrating storage could make material do more than one job. But each proposed use would need to meet structural, electrical, safety and durability requirements in its actual setting.
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What have researchers actually demonstrated?
Small devices in 2023
The 2023 paper reports laboratory measurements and small supercapacitor devices. MIT said those devices were about 1 cm across and 1 mm thick, charged to 1 volt. In a demonstration, three connected devices lit a 3-volt LED. The household-volume example was a calculation; the story described scaling up as future work. MIT News, 2023
Miniature prototypes in 2025
MIT’s 2025 report describes a 9-volt miniature ec³ arch that supported its own weight plus additional load while powering an LED. It also describes a separate 12-volt prototype powering a computer fan and USB devices. These are prototype demonstrations, not building-scale installations. MIT News, 2025
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The arch’s LED intensity varied under load. The 2025 report says this response might point toward a way to detect stress, but the demonstration does not establish a reliable structural-health monitoring system. The same report notes that adding carbon black can increase storage capacity while slightly weakening the concrete—a trade-off that matters when the material must also bear loads.
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A supercapacitor stores charge differently from a conventional battery and is generally suited to rapid charging and discharging. The attraction of carbon-concrete research is the prospect of combining energy storage with a material already used in buildings and infrastructure. That does not mean it can replace batteries in every role.
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A meaningful comparison would need to consider energy stored per volume, power and charge/discharge behavior, structural performance, electrolyte and other materials, service life, installed cost and readiness for deployment. The cited sources do not provide a complete commercial cost or lifetime comparison with conventional batteries, nor do they establish that ec³ is cheaper or superior overall. MIT professor Franz-Josef Ulm called ec³ a “viable substitute” in the context of the researchers’ vision; that is a researcher’s view, not independent proof of commercial substitution.
Is energy-storing concrete ready for real buildings?
No commercial building-scale energy-storage installation, production-scale environmental assessment, standardized construction specification or verified cost per kilowatt-hour is established in the cited work. The evidence is at the laboratory and prototype level, while the building and infrastructure uses remain potential applications.
MIT also reports that ec³ has been used in Sapporo sidewalk slabs for heating. That is a separate thermal-conduction use; it is not evidence of commercial energy storage in buildings. A 2024 MIT consortium announcement concerns collaboration to develop multifunctional concrete applications, not proof that energy-storing concrete is commercially deployed. MIT’s 2024 announcement
For now, the most accurate description is a promising research-stage material: small devices and prototypes have shown charge storage, while larger energy-storage roles are still being explored. The leap from a miniature demonstration to dependable structural elements with predictable capacity, lifespan and cost remains substantial.
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