Sand Battery

• Recently, Finland has installed world’s first sand battery that can store heat from renewable energy sources for months.
• Sand Battery is a high temperature thermal energy storage that uses sand or sand-like materials as its storage medium.
• It stores energy in sand as heat. Its main purpose is to work as a high-power and high-capacity reservoir for excess wind and solar energy.
• Energy is stored as heat, which can be used to heat homes, or to provide hot steam and high temperature process heat to industries that are often fossil-fuel dependent.

Working

1. Electricity is generated by wind turbines or solar panels.
2. Almost 30% power is used to power local infrastructure.
3. The remaining 70% is stored in sand battery heating the sand upto 1000 ^oC .
4. Stored energy can be used during lean (winter) season.