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Finland brings online the world’s largest commercial sand battery
The sand battery, run by district heating company Loviisan Lämpö in Southern Finland, is designed to store 100 MWh of renewable energy.
Modern power grids need a constant real-time balance between electricity supply and demand, but the intermittent nature of wind and solar can threaten stability. OilPrice reports that utilities increasingly pair renewables with storage and rapid-response generation to help prevent localized blackouts or voltage spikes.
OilPrice reports that Finland is now using a thermal energy storage approach built around sand batteries. A Finnish technology startup, Polar Night Energy, has constructed what it says is the world’s largest commercial sand battery, with a high-temperature design intended to store 100 MWh of renewable energy.
The industrial-scale installation is located in Pornainen, Southern Finland, and was commissioned by district heating company Loviisan Lämpö. It is 13 meters tall and uses 2,000 metric tons of crushed soapstone, a byproduct from local fireplace manufacturing.
According to OilPrice, the battery charges by drawing clean, cheap electricity during periods of peak renewable production. It then stores the energy as heat and releases it on-demand by circulating superheated air through crushed soapstone via a closed-loop system.