World's First Commercial Sand Battery Begins Energy Storage In Finland (newatlas.com) 68
Polar Night Energy says it's just opened its first commercial sand battery at the premises of "new energy" company Vatajankoski, a few hours out of Helsinki. New Atlas reports: This is a thermal energy storage system, effectively built around a big, insulated steel tank -- around 4 meters (13.1 ft) wide and 7 meters (23 ft) high -- full of plain old sand. When this sand is heated up, using a simple heat exchanger buried in the middle of it, this device is capable of storing an impressive 8 megawatt-hours of energy, at a nominal power rating of 100 kW, with the sand heated to somewhere around 500-600 degrees Celsius (932-1112F). When it's needed, the energy is extracted again as heat in the same way. Vatajankowski is using this stored heat, in conjunction with excess heat from its own data servers, to feed the local district heating system, which uses piped water to transmit heat around the area. It can then be used to heat buildings, or swimming pools, or in industrial processes, or in any other situation that requires heat.
This helps make it extremely efficient, the company tells Disruptive Investing in a video interview. "It's really easy to convert electricity into heat," says Polar Night CTO Markku Ylonen. "But going back from heat to electricity, that's where you need turbines and more complex things. As long as we're just using the heat as heat, it stays really simple." The company claims an efficiency factor up to 99 percent, a capability to store heat with minimal loss for months on end, and a lifespan in the decades. There's nothing special about the sand -- the company says it just needs to be dry and free from combustible debris. [...] The company says it'll scale up, too, with installations around 20 gigawatt-hours of energy storage making hundreds of megawatts of nominal power, and the sand heated as far as 1,000C (1,832F) in certain designs. It's possible to create bulk underground storage facilities out of disused mine shafts, if they're the right shape. There are no high-pressure vessels needed, and the biggest cost involved is often the pipework.
This helps make it extremely efficient, the company tells Disruptive Investing in a video interview. "It's really easy to convert electricity into heat," says Polar Night CTO Markku Ylonen. "But going back from heat to electricity, that's where you need turbines and more complex things. As long as we're just using the heat as heat, it stays really simple." The company claims an efficiency factor up to 99 percent, a capability to store heat with minimal loss for months on end, and a lifespan in the decades. There's nothing special about the sand -- the company says it just needs to be dry and free from combustible debris. [...] The company says it'll scale up, too, with installations around 20 gigawatt-hours of energy storage making hundreds of megawatts of nominal power, and the sand heated as far as 1,000C (1,832F) in certain designs. It's possible to create bulk underground storage facilities out of disused mine shafts, if they're the right shape. There are no high-pressure vessels needed, and the biggest cost involved is often the pipework.
Ha Ha (Score:3, Insightful)
If you believe that, I have a bridge for you in Brooklin to heat up.
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Well, it does say "up to", so pretty much any real value is convered. But good localised thermal insulation is quite easy and cheap to achieve, so I can believe it for the "battery" itself. Very unlikely that you can achieve such efficiency when you include the piping carrying the heat around the city though.
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I might have a bit of heat in late Jan or early Feb...but that's about it.
Is there any way sand batteries can help with AC in an efficient manner?
That's where I need my energy for most of the year.
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Is there any way sand batteries can help with AC in an efficient manner?
Yes.
You could cool the sand down at night when electricity is cheap and heat pumps are more efficient (outside air is cooler).
The cold sand can then be used to boost your AC efficiency at peak hours during the day.
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That said, you won't be able to cool it down to -500 C so it's not as useful as heating it up.
Re:Ha Ha (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: Ha Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
No that would be a capacitor. Batteries usually store energy in chemical bindings
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AKYUSHULLY it's electrochemical cells that store/generate electricity. The very old ones generated a tiny amount of juice so they had to be linked together in a "battery", in the sense of an arrangement of units all connected together - the same usage as "artillery battery" or "battery hens", or a the "battery of equipment" in an ICU.
Nowadays, most smal consumer "batteries", AA C and the like, are single cells; a laptop or EV does have a proper battery of galvanic cells, though.
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So it was a lack of electrical energy that the battleship I bought could not fire?
I should have read the fine print. Batteries not included.
Re:Ha Ha (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the etymology of "battery" to mean multiple cells wired together did originate from the battery used in artillery (an organized collection of artillery is a battery). Early voltaic piles were organized collections of metals and electrolytes and thus were referred to as batteries because of that association.
And yes - it dates back to the 19th century voltaic piles.
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Ben Franklin built an electric battery using glass window panes and thin lead plates. Using his “electric battery,” a term he coined himself
https://www.upsbatterycenter.c... [upsbatterycenter.com]
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Re:Ha Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically a battery is a group of electrical energy storage cells. Most people call what their phone has a battery, but it's actually a single cell. Same with AA "batteries", they are single cells.
The meaning of words changes over time, especially when laypeople start using them. At this point "battery" means any energy storage device.
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Not the dumbest thing I've heard called a "battery." That award goes out to the gravity battery.
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It is wrong, but only because they only have one of them. If they build another at the same site, then they have a battery.
You are using "battery" synonymously with "electrochemical cell" which is incorrect. Things like your laptop battery are indeed batteries because they include multiple cells. That AA is not a battery.
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A battery is a group of artillery pieces. It is also used to describe energy storage [wikipedia.org] even if it is not electrical in nature.
Feel free to call this an accumulator, because that is a more general term and can include things like solar ponds, gravity batteries, and ordinary capacitors. Or more specifically call it thermal energy storage [wikipedia.org].
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I guess "thermal pile" would be the more technically correct term. But a battery is just a coordinated group of similar units working together. Hence an electrical battery is composed of many cells, an artillery battery is composed of many guns, etc. If they wired 2 of these together with a common input/output then you could call it a thermal battery and be 100% technically correct.
But colloquially, "battery" has come to mean "energy storage device", which this certainly is.
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Germany/Berlin was heat storage in Water.
But this story is a dup, so we had the same story about sand storage, a week or two ago :P
Re:Ha Ha (Score:4, Funny)
So you're saying that Slashdot is becoming a battery for stories? They go in, then get rehashed and rereleased later?
Re: Ha Ha (Score:1)
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Up to. Just like your internet connection can be "up to" 100mbit/sec but you can't really watch a 240p YouTube video when everyone and their dog is streaming without constant stuttering.
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If you don't believe it - then learn some physics.
I have some books to sell you.
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"We have a group that meets Fridays at midnight under The Brooklyn Bridge and the password is 'sic semper tyrranis'."
I just pray that (Score:2)
The Swiss keep their water battery away from the Finns' sand battery! With Finland joining NATO, we might have to nuke Switzerland.
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Or they combine it to create the much superior mud battery.
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If I poop in water to heat it, is it a poop battery?
More seriously, with this and yesterday story also from BeauHD about Water Battery Switzerland's 20 Million kWh 'Water Battery' Is Now Operational [slashdot.org] It is really the same low quality post.
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I know. So why did you expect me to put any more effort into the joke I make about it?
The scale of the challenge (Score:3)
In a lot of the world heating consumes vast amounts of energy for a reasonable chunk of the year and as solar generation drops during winter months this demand correlates poorly with sustainable energy generation levels so it makes some sense to bank energy in a way that is efficient for heating even though energy for heating isn't needed during summer periods. If there was one thing about this solution that highlights the scale of the challenge it's that a a tank wider than the length of a car and taller than a 2 story house could provide sufficient energy to heat perhaps 20-40 energy efficient properties for 2-5 days. A typical street with 200 houses on it would need 5-10 of these, and although it would balance energy use over a few day window you'd still need to be generating sufficient energy in each week to cover all that heating demand.
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Perhaps you should check your numbers.
A german zero energy house, needs exactly zero of those units.
We would use/need them for hot water for showers only.
Suppose you have really heating requirements, that unit easy heats 200 houses, just the opposite of your idea.
Either your math is super bad or your understanding of physics. Probably both.
heat perhaps 20-40 energy efficient properties for 2-5 days.
No idea what you mean with 2-5 days, the battery gets charged every day and discharged every night, dawn, dus
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Perhaps you should check your numbers.
Perhaps you should do the same.
Suppose you have really heating requirements, that unit easy heats 200 houses, just the opposite of your idea.
According to TFA this device can deliver at 100kWh.
In northern europe this is enough to keep only about 24 homes relatively warm in the winter.
Of course a lot has to do with the actual temperatures and how well the houses are isolated.
But i think you're way too optimistic.
Either your math is super bad or your understanding of physics. Probably both.
I'd like you to meditate on these words.
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the summary mentioned 20MWh, not 100kWh
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You either didn't read the article or you didn't understand it.
Back to school for you!
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I actually did not read the article, but only the summary :P ...
Because it was self explaining
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But then you should already know the mistake you make.
What is the 8MWh referring to? What is the 100kW referring to?
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No idea what you think which mistake I made.
But to answer (no idea why you ask) stupid question:
8MWh is storage capacity,
10kW is the rate you can fill or deplete it.
Was that sufficient?
Sorry, you are just silly.
I f I made a mistake: point it out. Otherwise be silent.
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8MWh is storage capacity,
10kW is the rate you can fill or deplete it.
The article mentions 100kW, not 10kW but i'll assume you meant 100kW and accept your proof of reading capability.
So, which of these two figures is going to be the limiting factor for how many houses you can heat with one of these batteries?
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I answered to your post, you wrote 10kW.
So, which of these two figures is going to be the limiting factor for how many houses you can heat with one of these batteries?
None. As both are your figures and both are wrong, neither matching the summary nor the article.
Any more questions?
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I answered to your post, you wrote 10kW.
I didn't quote 10kWh. Now you're just making shit up.
Having trouble accepting your errors?
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Perhaps I made an error, however I answered to the stuff you wrote.
If you wrote 100kWh and I accidentally "answered" with 10kWh, then it is your fault to insist on an error.
As it should be pretty clear from context that I meant your number and did not intentionally "invent a new" one. In my memory you wrote for some reason 10kWh - but it is super easy to figure what you wrote: you only need to click "parent" several times: then you will find your own post. Simple, isn't it?
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Yeah yeah, forget about that.
Just compute how many houses can be heated in the winter from a battery that has a power rating of 100kW.
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As long as it's not 1.21 Gigawatts, I don't wanna know about it!
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Oops, that 100kWh should be plain kW without the h.
Sorry for any confusion this caused.
It's not a sand battery (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a giant oil-bath radiator made of sand. I.e. it's an electric heater with a lot of inertia. Not impressive.
And yeah, the crazy efficiency figures are correct: turning electricity into heat is always 100%. Getting 99% out means it's really, really well insulated. But it's certainly not hard to achieve.
Wake me up when they do the same thing and convert the latent heat in the sand back into electricity with any sort of efficiency.
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Why wastefully convert the heat back to electricity, when you can use it for heating?
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Absolutely.
Just don't call it a battery. Call it a thermal accumulator. Calling it a battery is a cheap clickbait.
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Even in science we have accepted but arguably nonsensical terms like Atom Laser, which when written out would read Atom Light Amplified Simulated Emission Radiation. All while it's neither Light, nor amplified, nor stimulated emission. But since it has a subset of qualities that Lasers are usually associated with, namely being capable of producing a coherent beam of 'particles' propagating into the same direction.
Personally
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I suspect translation problems here as well.
Re:It's not a sand battery (Score:5, Interesting)
Wake me up when they do the same thing and convert the latent heat in the sand back into electricity with any sort of efficiency.
Not all energy is needed in the form of electricity. In fact *most* such energy is not, not only in industry but even in basic things such as heating your house in winter.
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Using low-grade energy (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of community-wide heating systems in Europe. They use low-grade energy - waste heat from industrial processes, from power plants, etc - to heat water, which is then sent around to heat houses and businesses. This is actually a really good, efficient thing to do, because that heat would otherwise just be discarded into the environment, and those buildings would then use oil or gas (a high-grade energy source) to generate heat.
Using electricity to provide heat seems fundamentally wasteful. You can't use (more efficient) heat pumps, because of the temperatures they want to reach, so it's pure resistive heating. Turning high-grade energy into waste heat, with 99% efficiency. Wow. Honestly, this reminds me of the proposal to use Bitcoin mining rigs, where the idea was they they suck excess power, but can be turned off when needed. And meanwhile, you mine a few coins.
tl;dr: This isn't storage in any useful sense, because you don't get electricity back. It's just an expensive way to generate heat.
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tl;dr: This isn't storage in any useful sense, because you don't get electricity back. It's just an expensive way to generate heat.
It's energy storage. That's useful too, particularly since it seems to usable as seasonal storage. So you can use store excess renewable energy produced in the summer and use it in the winter.
So Silicon Batteries then ? (Score:2)
Nice !
Very Poor Efficiency (Score:2)
Based on TFA it seems that this is actually a very inefficient heating system! The article does not explain where the energy heating the sand is coming from though it states the energy input in terms of KWh, which strongly hints at electricity, If so, then it would seems they are using resistance heating to heat up the sand ultimately, which means that their 99% recovery is a very wasteful use of electricity since such a high grade type of power can be used to run a heat pump which routinely operate at 300%
VS the first commercial cow manure battery (Score:2)
When it's needed, the v