Alternative Energy
Energy Storage: The Sand Battery
A cheap and effective way to store low grade energy invented by two Finns, but is it limited in application?
The intermittent nature of solar and wind energy — almost feast or famine — means that it some form of economic power storage is required, the balance supply with demand.
Two Finnish developers say that their sand battery could solve the problem of year-round supply, a major issue for green energy — and for cold countries like Finland.
And they do it with 100 tons of builders sand (other sizes are available).
Low grade energy? What’s that — is it like unleaded gas you may ask?
No, far from it — at the other end of the car in fact. Low grade energy is all that heat that comes out of your exhaust pipe and gets wasted. There’s plenty of it around — factories, power stations, aircon systems, but it’s not easy to store and use efficiently. And that’s not something the sand battery solves.
But it is something that needs solving. I’ll come back to that.
Energy is energy isn’t it?
Not quite.
