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What the hell is a ‘sand battery?’ And why am I so damn excited?


When you think of energy solutions, you might not imagine 100 tonnes of builders’ sand piled inside a huge silo. But one company has actually found that sand can be the secret sauce to energy storage, as it can store heat for months.  How does this work? Finnish startup Polar Night Energy has developed a novel way to store heat.  Yep, it’s a giant silo full of sand! A 4×7 meter steel container is filled with hundreds of tonnes of sand. The sand is then heated with wind or solar energy, and stored for use by a local energy provider…

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