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Thermal storage works nicely with solar thermal plants. Not so good for direct electricity storage though.
But if the other choice is "throttle down the wind farm, because the grid doesn't need that much power" - then a really cheap/simple/safe (but inefficient) storage tech could prove pretty useful.
Does this differ in design from the Finish sand battery from 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791
Using resistive heaters, round trip efficiency (back to electricity) is estimated to be around 52%.
> The sand used in the thermal energy storage (TES) system could be heated to the range of 1,100 C using low-cost renewable power. [...] when electricity is needed, the system will feed hot sand by gravity into a heat exchanger, which heats a working fluid, which drives a combined-cycle generator. So this is definitely not a "bury your heating coils in a sand dune, then connect..." technology. Quartz melts (per Wikip…
Huh, it intuitively seems like piping working fluid to the sand ought to be easier than moving the sand to the working fluid. Is the moving-sand approach fundamentally desirable thing (I can't imagine why) or is it just a simplification for the proof of concept?
Thermal storage works nicely with solar thermal plants. Not so good for direct electricity storage though.
Pretty inefficient, yes. Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress. But if the other choice is "throttle down the wind farm, because the grid doesn't need that much power" - then a really cheap/simple/safe (but inefficient) storage tech could prove pretty useful.
Thermal storage works nicely with solar thermal plants. Not so good for direct electricity storage though.
Pretty inefficient, yes. Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress. But if the other choice is "throttle down the wind farm, because the grid doesn't need that much power" - then a really cheap/simple/safe (but inefficient) storage tech could prove pretty useful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty inefficient, yes. Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress. But if the other choice is "throttle down the wind farm, because the grid doesn't need that much power" - then a really cheap/simple/safe (but inefficient) storage tech could prove pretty useful.
How does this compared to pumped storage?
Undecided did a couple of videos on this technology. It seems quite useful for heat storage - as other commenters have noted, it isn't that efficient for pure electric electric storage. * How a Sand Battery Could Change the Energy Game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ZrM-IZlTE * Sand Batteries for Home Usage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVqHYNE2QwE
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty inefficient, yes. Thermodynamics is a harsh mistress. But if the other choice is "throttle down the wind farm, because the grid doesn't need that much power" - then a really cheap/simple/safe (but inefficient) storage tech could prove pretty useful.
How does this compared to pumped storage?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, it intuitively seems like piping working fluid to the sand ought to be easier than moving the sand to the working fluid. Is the moving-sand approach fundamentally desirable thing (I can't imagine why) or is it just a simplification for the proof of concept?
Storing & moving fine-grained bulk dry stuff is really old, cheap, & reliable technology - think of grain silos.