I found this video about a sand battery quite interesting. I know with Thailand the main issue is cooling things down and not heating them up, but still, I think the video is worth a watch.

 

 

The clever Finns have made a sand battery that heats up to 500 degrees and lasts for months using summer heat from solar and wind to store for the winter looks like a very cheap way of green power when scaled up ????

On 7/6/2022 at 3:34 PM, sammieuk1 said:

The clever Finns have made a sand battery that heats up to 500 degrees and lasts for months using summer heat from solar and wind to store for the winter looks like a very cheap way of green power when scaled up ????

Some commercial solar farms already use similar tech to heat up salt , creating 24h solar energy ( solar to heat , heat to hot salt melted , melted salt to water , water to steam , and steam to power a classic turbine ) . This is possible in lower scale also , even with less heat , using sand ( you lose a lot of power since most energy is stored in phase shifts, solid to liquid and liquid to gas) . However , scaling it down also means scaling down funds . The more commercial it gets , to more funds are available to make it usable and productive , in case of electricity production but also in money production . For home markets , this is how it fails. Nr1 these systems are complex ( well more complex then a boiler or air conditioner , i work chem process operator so for me this is peanuts ) , so not useful for home use . Nr 2 these systems got many potential failures , see nr 1 . Nr 3 since they are more complex , they do involve more costs in forms of initial investment and in forms of maintenance . Both are out of the question for home owners . 

I am all for the energy neutral or even positive homes , and yes , we can do something ( temporary , since human population keeps growing) to stop increased CO2 emissions . This however is not for home use .

Do however not worry , there are new systems/batteries underway . Storing energy into heat is not for all people , it is only for company/commercial use , while it is a viable source . I however know that most people do not have all the knowledge i got , so , no heat is no resource for normal people .