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Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

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Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#4

What's the round trip efficiency of something like this, and what's the rate of loss to the environment? There's been a couple of these posted in the last few days and I have no feel for these numbers.

This was the question I came to pose... This is such an exciting field but when the CORE most important variable is missing, I tend to assume the worst - in this case being that the value is atrociously low.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#7
From this article it seems like they are using the sand to store heat that would otherwise go to waste due to temps too low to otherwise turn it into other forms of energy.

At least that’s what it seems like. They aren’t very specific, but it explains why they aren’t using something more akin to pumped water energy storage.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#8
As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#9

Strange they heat the sand instead of moving it around like a pumped battery

Moving sand (an abrasive grit) around is challenging at room temperate, doing it at 1000°F (500-600°C) seems impossible. It makes far more sense not to subject things to that kind of abrasion, and just flow air or water/steam through it.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#10

What's the round trip efficiency of something like this, and what's the rate of loss to the environment? There's been a couple of these posted in the last few days and I have no feel for these numbers.

The key here is: this isn't a battery.

It's electricity powered thermal storage for municipal heating.

Which, in my opinion, is a smart idea. Why bother converting the heat back to electric to end up being used to generate heat in homes.

You could use this as a heat sink at the home attached to a high efficiency heat pump for 6:1 thermal efficiency.

We could do with municipal heating here in Tasmania

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