Finnish researchers installed first working 'sand battery' that can store energy as heat for months. See article in BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61996520
In short:
- Use excess/cheap electricity to heat up sand.
- Store the hot sand and thus the energy for later use. Article says it can be done for up to several months.
- Later use the warm sand as a heat source for district heating, i.e. heat up water that's transported to e.g. residences.
The BBC article is light on technical details: The installation in Kankaanpää in Finland uses about a 100 tonnes of sand heated to 500 deg C.
Their company is called Polar Night Energy: https://polarnightenergy.fi/ Extracting information from there; the unit in Kankaanpää has 100 kW heating power and 8 MWh capacity.
Didn't see details of cost. Seems like it could scale well in principle. However, IIRC, construction sand might become a scarce resource in the future, so I hope their solution works with other types of "sand".
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Finnish Researchers Install First Working 'Sand Battery'; Stores Energy as Heat for Months
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 06 2022, @03:45PM (4 children)
Well, glad they're finish.
I'm Hungary now, anyone got a Turkey sandwich?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday July 06 2022, @03:56PM (2 children)
Sorry I only eat Turkiye sandwiches now. Just like I only use Myanmar-shave in the morning and drink Sri Lankan tea in the afternoon.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 06 2022, @04:50PM (1 child)
Ok, no Beijing Duck for you!
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Thursday July 07 2022, @02:05AM
Viaduct?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:34PM
By the well-known Scandinavian Scale of Completion they successfully passed all the stages from Danish (25%), Norwegian (50%), Swedish (75%), to Finnish (100%), but if the project ultimately fails it's because they were Russian.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday July 06 2022, @03:46PM (4 children)
Hot sand can be a valuable commodity perhaps only in Finland or countries at similar lattitude. I doubt peope in Sahara share the same view.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday July 06 2022, @03:53PM
Having slept in the Sahara desert years ago, I can tell you I would have loved a hot sand heater - or indeed any heater - under my tent during the night. It's friggin' COLD in the desert at night.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:01AM (2 children)
If they didn't use the dumbed-down name (c.f. "water battery" = pumped hydro storage) and called it what it is, thermal energy storage, it'd make a lot more sense. It's just thermal energy storage, in this case with sand as the storage medium. It's no more a "sand battery" than pumping water into a hydro lake is a "water battery".
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday July 07 2022, @04:04PM (1 child)
It's dumbed down so that the vast unwashed masses (AKA the dumb people) can get an idea of what "pumped hydro storage" and "thermal energy storage" does. In the simplest terms, they do the same thing that a battery does: store energy.
It's not written for those of us who understand those terms; it's for consumption by Joe Average.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday July 09 2022, @03:37PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday July 06 2022, @06:09PM (5 children)
Why can't they keep the sand near the house itself, maybe in an underground vault or the like?
(Score: 2, Informative) by liar on Wednesday July 06 2022, @09:27PM (3 children)
Underground might not work well, as ground is a better thermal conductor than air. That's why, when camping, you should put 3 blankets under you and 1 over your body to sleep.
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:54AM (1 child)
Presumably they insulate the sand anyway.
(Score: 1) by liar on Thursday July 07 2022, @04:48PM
I think so also, elsewise the temp would rapidly drop to below ground average temp (I believe 55F at 6ft or so). My daughter's step dad had a pit dug and concrete lined, filled with gravel, and 2 air vents added (intake side deep buried) and then capped with concrete, so that in the summer they use a fan (output side) to suck the air through the gravel to cool the house.
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 1) by crotherm on Thursday July 07 2022, @04:01PM
I always thought the three blankets were for the rocks.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Michael on Wednesday July 06 2022, @09:43PM
One large thermal battery is more efficient than many smaller ones because volume scales faster than surface area, so it's better to have fewer larger ones until transmission losses to the end user start to dominate.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Wednesday July 06 2022, @06:50PM (1 child)
There are many large scale storage projects going now, at various stages. Quite a few using "crushed rock" - ie. sand, except clearly doesn't need to be construction grade.
There might indeed get to be a construction grade sand shortage, but not sand in general and if we run short of rock we are a lot more ***ed than just climate change.
Example: https://www.stiesdal.com/storage/the-gridscale-technology-explained [stiesdal.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by liar on Wednesday July 06 2022, @09:23PM
When I worked Wastewater, one of the observations was that the units would normally produce some of their own sand while operating: https://hankines.com/fluidized-bed-incinerators/ [hankines.com]
https://www.industrialfurnace.com/fbi-101 [industrialfurnace.com]
Maybe not germane, but I remember that one of the features of fluid bed incinerators was that you could bring them on and offline to suit demand because the sand would hold the heat for quite awhile.
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by Rich26189 on Wednesday July 06 2022, @11:50PM (2 children)
Some years ago I happened to see a bit of a British made home-fixer-upper show. IIRC one of the hosts may have been Dick Strawbridge. The bit that intrigued me was a solar collector that passed the heated air through a concrete lined pit filled with broken glass. They were using old wine bottles. The broken glass was used as the storage media for the heat.
I didn’t see any prior or following episodes of the show so I don’t know any more than that. The idea of using broken glass for heat storage seems rather novel. This probably wouldn't scale, it's just a low cost, DIY project for a home owner and assumes access to lots of wine bottles.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:04AM
Meh, in Manchester it'd be one or two games' worth of beer bottles.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday July 09 2022, @06:32PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves