←back to thread

Finnish City Inaugurates 1 MW/100 MWh Sand Battery

(cleantechnica.com)
190 points erwinmatijsen | 2 comments | 03 Sep 25 06:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
dguest ◴[03 Sep 25 09:59 UTC] No.45113987[source]▶
Finland is still 25% oil for electric generation [1] (and almost 40% fossil fuel). That means a lot of the electricity to heat the sand still comes from oil. It makes me wonder if this is more efficient than just using oil heating. Or some hybrid approach that uses oil to heat the sand.

Of course there are other benefits: it's still a good way to level electric generation, which is important for e.g. nuclear plants and wind power.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

replies(5): >>45114026 #>>45114055 #>>45114120 #>>45114363 #>>45114708 #
1. myrmidon ◴[03 Sep 25 10:11 UTC] No.45114055[source]▶
> Finland is still 25% oil for electric generation [1] (and almost 40% fossil fuel). That means a lot of the electricity to heat the sand still comes from oil.

This is not a valid conclusion. Battery projects like this are gonna charge/heat up when the electricity price is low, electricity price is low when supply/demand ratio is high and this often happens when renewable electricity is most available and makes up a disproportionate share of the electricity mix.

Edit: Your graph is not what you say it is, this shows primary energy (i.e. includes fuel/heating/...), not "electric generation". Electricity in Finland is mostly nuclear, wind, hydro and certainly not "40% fossil fuel".

replies(1): >>45114757 #
2. dguest ◴[03 Sep 25 12:06 UTC] No.45114757[source]▶
I think the primary energy does include electric generation, but you're right, I posted the wrong chart. The correct one is here:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

and it backs up your point. Sorry to any Fins I might have offended with my lazy post.