Finland has inaugurated an industrial-scale sand battery this week in the southern town of Pornainen, where it'll take over heating duties from an old woodchip power plant for the municipality. It's set to reduce carbon emissions from the local heating network by as much as 70%, and is the largest…
How do they keep sand from cooling down though - keeping it at up to 600C sounds like it’d lose quite a lot of energy due to temperature difference with outside? It’ll be cool when they add electricity generator, otherwise this battery makes sense only in colder climates
Almost as if there’s a reason it’s happening in Finland…
Batteries like this have been developed for home use in Northern Alberta.
Anywhere with municipal heating really.
I can see the middle being 600C, the edges are probably cooler.
Yes, but in milder climates one needs heating for like four or five months only. Still great to reduce emissions and whatnot, but it’d sit idle the rest of the year.
Probably. But it’d be still nice to have specs on that.
Its a thermal storage battery, no electricity is generated.
Insulation and the thermal properties of sand ie it is good at storing heat. Think of it like a rock, it can store tons of heat but it takes a long time to transfer heat.
THIS IS NOT A BATTERY.
While it’s not a battery it mentions that they are working at heat conversion to electricity.
Yes, but even that would not make this a battery. Energy storage =/= battery. A battery is a type of energy storage, this is another type.