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Concrete mixed with conductive carbon black has powered tiny laboratory supercapacitors, and researchers have proposed using the material to store renewable electricity in structures. But it is not yet a proven home battery: the building-scale figures are estimates, and a 2025 report describes a small prototype rather than an operating foundation or commercial product.
How can cement store electricity?
The idea is to use cement as a scaffold for a conductive network, not to turn ordinary concrete into a conventional battery. In the 2023 study, cement, water and carbon black form an electrode material. As cement hydrates, its pore structure helps organize the carbon into a connected network with extensive internal surface area. That surface provides sites for storing electrical charge.
A working supercapacitor also needs mobile ions supplied by an electrolyte. MIT’s explanation describes two electrodes separated by a thin gap or insulating layer and saturated with an electrolyte such as potassium chloride. The resulting device stores and releases charge; it is not simply a block of concrete that absorbs solar power on its own. The 2023 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes the electrode material and its measured behavior.
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How much energy can concrete store?
Chanut and colleagues estimated a maximum volumetric storage capacity of 20–220 Wh/m³ in the 2023 PNAS study, depending on the specific surface area of the carbon black. This is a research estimate for the material, not a field measurement from a building or utility installation.
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MIT News used that work to illustrate what a household-scale system might require: about 45 m³ of concrete doped with high-surface-area carbon black for approximately 10 kWh, framed as roughly one average day’s household electricity use. That is a calculation based on the researchers’ estimate, not a tested residential foundation or a guarantee of a home’s actual daily consumption. MIT’s July 2023 account gives the example and explains the laboratory demonstration.
What has actually been demonstrated?
The 2023 laboratory cells
The first devices described by MIT were small cells, about 1 cm in diameter and 1 mm thick, with a voltage of about 1 V per cell. Researchers connected three cells to light a 3 V LED. This demonstrated basic energy storage and discharge at small scale; it did not demonstrate a building-scale energy system.
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The reported 2025 prototype
A 2025 PNAS search-result record reports a stacked-layer architectural prototype of about 0.003 m³, operating at 12 V and 304 Wh/m³. Those headline figures indicate further laboratory progress, but they do not establish a building installation, lifetime, structural performance or commercial readiness. The PNAS record is the available reference for that prototype.
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It is a proposed possibility, not a demonstrated use. The researchers and MIT have discussed integrating the material into foundations, isolated shelters, roads or wind infrastructure. The 45 m³ household example is an extrapolation from estimated material capacity; the cited work does not show a house foundation storing and delivering power in everyday operation.
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Supercapacitors can be suited to rapid charge and discharge and frequent cycling, but the cited sources do not establish that this cement-based material can replace a household battery for sustained practical service. Nor do they establish installed cost, building-code approval, field maintenance needs or durability over a building’s service life.
Why adding more carbon is not a simple fix
More carbon black can increase storage capacity, but it can also reduce concrete strength. MIT reported around 10% carbon black as a potential balance for structural applications in the formulation context discussed in 2023. That is not a general construction recipe: an actual mix would need to meet both electrical and mechanical requirements for its intended structure.
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For a practical comparison with other storage technologies, capacity alone is not enough. A building system would also need verified charge and discharge performance, load-bearing behavior, installed-system cost, service life and maintenance data. The cited work does not provide comparable building-scale results across those measures.
What would make the technology ready for buildings?
A useful next step would be evidence from larger structures operating under realistic loads and environmental conditions. That would help establish whether the material can retain electrical performance while meeting structural requirements over time, and what it costs to install and maintain. The available reports describe promising material research and small prototypes, not an approved or commercially available structural energy-storage product.
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