World's first commercial 'sand battery' provides green energy storage in Finland
05 July 2022
Polar Night Energy_Vatajankoski_Sand_Heat_Storage
Now in operation at Vatajankoski power plant in Finland, Polar Night Energy’s first commercial sand-based high temperature heat storage offers a potential solution to a key problem with renewable power – how to store green energy. This thermal energy storage, which has a hundred tons of sand inside, is now producing low emission district heating for the city of Kankaanpää in Western Finland.
Polar Night Energy and Vatajankoski, an energy utility based in Western Finland, have together constructed a sand-based thermal energy storage. It is the world's first commercial solution to store electricity in the sand as heat to be used in a district heating network.
The storage, with Polar Night Energy’s patented heat storage system inside, is placed on Vatajankoski’s power plant area, and it provides heat for Vatajankoski’s district heating network in Kankaanpää.
“The construction of the storage went well, especially considering that the solution is completely new. We managed to get everything in order despite some challenges and a short delay. Now the sand is already hot,” says Polar Night Energy’s co-founder & CTO, Markku Ylönen, continuing: “We have already learned that our system has even more potential than we initially calculated. It’s been a positive surprise.”
The actual heat storage is a circa 4 metres wide and 7 metres high steel container that has an automated heat storage system and a hundred tons of sand inside. As a material, sand is durable and inexpensive and can store a lot of heat in a small volume at a temperature of about 500–600 degrees Celsius.
The heat storage has 100 kW of heating power and 8 MWh of energy capacity.
“This innovation is a part of the smart and green energy transition. Heat storages can significantly help to increase intermittent renewables in the electrical grid. At the same time, we can prime the waste heat to usable level to heat a city. This is a logical step towards combustion-free heat production,” says Ylönen.
Vatajankoski uses the heat provided by the storage to prime the waste heat recovered from their data servers, which are intended for high-performance computing. Depending on the season, the temperature of the 60-degree waste heat from the servers must be raised to 75–100 degrees before it is fed into the district heating network.
BBC News reported on Polar Night Energy’s “Sand Battery”
UK national broadcast company, the BBC visited Polar Night Energy in Finland. During two days of filming, BBC’s Environmental Correspondent, Matt McGrath and cameraman, Tony Jolliffe examined Polar Night Energy’s pilot in Hiedanranta, Tampere and the heat storage in Vatajankoski, Kankaanpää.
They interviewed an energy and climate specialist, Elina Seppänen from the City of Tampere and Managing Director, Pekka Passi from Vatajankoski in addition to Polar Night Energy company founders, Markku Ylönen and Tommi Eronen.
At the end of the second day, they made a trip to the pool of Kankaanpää’s swimming hall, which is heated by district heating from Vatajankoski, filming part of the story in a pool of warm water.
Read the BBC story: Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem
Vatajankoski provides district heating & cooling services, as well as electricity distribution services to its clients in the Kankaanpää region in Western Finland, and aims to produce its energy as sustainably as possible. www.vatajankoski.fi
Polar Night Energy designs and builds high temperature & zero emission heat storages. www.polarnightenergy.fi
