world's largest sandblasted sandstone

Sand cells designed by the startup Polar Night Energy will be built over the next 13 months in Pornainen, Finland, to meet year-round heating needs.

Polar Night Energy is building the world's largest sand cell in Finland. Photo: BBC

After construction, the company estimates the new type of battery could help reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 70%. The new sand battery is a 13-meter-high, 15-meter-wide container filled with crushed soapstone (which conducts heat better than regular sand) and heat transfer tubes. According to the plan, when there is excess energy from wind and solar power, a process called resistance heating will be used to convert it into heat energy, IFL Science reported on March 11th.

The process involves heating the air, then circulating it through the tank via heat transfer pipes, warming the surrounding crushed soap stones. When conventional energy sources become expensive, such as during the winter months, the hot air can be fed into a county-wide heating system.

The sand cell being built in Pornainen is not the first of its kind. Previously, Polar Night Energy installed the world's first fully operational commercial sand cell in Kankaanpää, Finland, in 2022. However, the latest version will be 10 times larger, with a heating capacity of one megawatt and the ability to store up to 100 megawatts of thermal energy, enough to meet the heating needs of an entire district for a week in winter and nearly a month in summer.

While the world is seeking to increase renewable energy storage capacity with many costly and environmentally impactful solutions, sand cells like the one above could become a cheaper and less impactful solution, according to Polar Night Energy. In addition to the sand cell project, Finland is also preparing to transform an abandoned mine into a giant gravity battery.

An Khang (According to IFL Science )

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