Finnish start up Polar Night Energy says the 1 MW/100 MWh sand battery, located in southern Finland, has performed as expected in its first months of operation while exceeding its guaranteed efficiency targets.
An inauguration ceremony took place earlier this week for a 1 MW/100 MWh sand battery, the world’s largest to date, in Finland.
Located in the southern municipality of Pornainen, the industrial-scale sand battery began operating in June following commissioning by district heating company Loviisan Lämpö, which now uses it as the main production facility in the district heating network.
Its developers, Finnish startup Polar Night Energy, say the sand battery has performed as expected in the first months, even exceeding its guaranteed efficiency targets. It has prevented the use of the area’s old woodchip plant all summer.
A sand battery is a high-temperature thermal energy storage system that stores clean electricity as heat in sand or other solid materials. Standing at almost 13 meters tall and 15 meters wide, the Pornainen sand battery delivers 1 MW of thermal power, offers a storage capacity of 100 MWh and uses approximately 2,000 tons of crushed soapstone as its thermal storage medium.
A statement released by Polar Night Energy explains that the sand battery can participate in electricity reserve markets, with its profitability based on charging it according to electricity prices and Fingrid’s reserve markets. Its large storage capacity enables consumption to be optimized over several days or weeks, also helping to balance the electricity grid.
Speaking during the inauguration ceremony, Finland’s Minister of the Environment and Climate, Sari Multala, commented that thermal storage can improve the flexibility of the energy system and reduce industrial emissions.
“Energy storage plays an important role in the energy transition, where combustion-based production is phased out and society moves towards carbon neutrality,” Multala said. “The Pornainen sand battery is a great example of how the clean transition can be advanced through the electrification of district heating networks.”
Polar Night Energy says it is in active negotiations for several large-scale thermal storage projects in district heating, hot air and process steam production. “Industrial applications are particularly promising, especially where heat above 100°C is required, something electric boilers and heat pumps cannot provide,” explained Chief Operating Officer Liisa Naskali.
The company has also revealed that it expects to begin constructing a pilot project that will test its power-to-heat-to-power sand battery technology in the coming weeks.
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