The first sand battery is a fact in Finland

Green and renewable energy sources do not always require stratospheric investments. Sometimes ingenuity and technical expertise is needed to make everything possible. These are two very young people engineers Finns Markku Ylönen and Tommi Eronen, the creators of the first sand battery. The battery they made doesn’t use lithium or expensive materials, so what makes the difference is the simple use of regular construction sand.

The battery is a large cylinder made of insulating material with a series of electrical resistors and 100 tons of sand inside. The resistors heat up thanks to the excess electrical power created by wind turbines, photovoltaic panels or others. The sand reaches 500 ° C. The heat released during the night or when the green sources do not provide enough energy is used for water heating. It powers the district heating system in the Finnish city of Kankaanpää.

The sand battery is the best solution to thicken the excess energy compared to renewable energysources. It’s at cheap and keeps the heat at one stable temperature for a few months. It has no problem with decreasing its performance over time. Finally, it has no deletion dilemmas. However, as in most cases, the creation of the two young engineers also has its advantages and disadvantages.

The sand battery becomes inefficient if you try to convert the heat thickened by the sand back into electricity. It is therefore useful to find applications that allow you to use heat as it is: water for swimming pools and heating. After their invention, the two engineers seek financiers and funds to bring their first sand battery to market. For the time being, it is only the first demonstration factory for their city.