The Power of Sand Batteries -- Revolutionizing Energy Storage...

this is traditional Turkish coffee brood a sandpit believe it or not this centurial tradition  holds the key to solving one of renewable Energy's   worst pitfalls it's intermittency how the  secret is in the hot sand I'm talking about sand   batteries a scalable and very different approach  to store excess energy from wind and solar that   uses one of the cheapest most ubiquitous  and abundant raw materials you can think of sand how does it work and how can it give lithium  ion batteries a run for their money let's pick   this out together I'm Ricky and this is two bit da vinci, so you might be thinking storing   power in sand doesn't exactly sound intuitive  does it but hear me out a sand battery is a   very simple form of thermal energy storage and  it storage energy in the form of heat think of   a sand battery as a giant thermos filled with hot  sand we take the excess energy from solar wind or   even the grid when energy is cheap and use it to  heat up a whole bunch of sand and I mean a lot   of sand fundamentally there's two ways to store  energy store that heat at a higher temperature   or in more sand or both and if you do both you can  store a ton of energy we'll get to numbers here in   a minute but for now let's focus on how it works  now sand might not seem that special but it rocks   at holding in the heat think of those evenings  when the beach sand is Toasty long after the sun   has gone down that's what we're harnessing we  use the stored energy either directly as heat   or convert it back to electricity the last part  is a bit tricky and has several cons which we'll   explore in a minute but using heat directly is  the easiest thing in the world we've been doing   it for centuries remember that Turkish coffee I  showed you earlier the process starts by heating   a tray of sand called s and then using that heat  from the sand to brew the coffee extracting the   heat directly so the s is essentially the  grandfather of sand batteries dating all the   way back to the 15th or 16th century but why do  we need sand batteries or any other type in the   first place well because renewable energies of  the future might be intermittent the sun doesn't   shine exactly the same throughout the day and  it doesn't shine at night and the wind doesn't   blow at the same speed either in fact if you saw a  video on how wind farms have a dirty little secret   you'll remember that even when the wind is blowing  wind farms sometimes have to shut down because of   a lack of demand this gets complicated and this  is why we need some sort of place to put energy   when we don't need it right away so the only way  then to power Our Lives 24/7 with renewable energy   is to take full advantage of peak generation and  store it when it's not needed for times when it   is I remember hearing about sand batteries when a  finnn company called polar Knight energy unveiled   the world's first commercial sand battery it was  all the rage a couple of years ago they built a   pilot plant a large industrial size battery with a  capacity of 8 megawatt hourss delivering 200 KW of   power as heat enough to provide District heating  for 100 homes during the cold finish Winters that   battery has been in operation since 2022 in  the Finn city of cankana I'm saying that wrong   I apologize and it uses 100 tons of low-grade  construction sand heated to around 1100° celsus   so how exactly does the battery work it's pretty  simple you start with a huge insulated thermos   put some pipes similar to a radiator and fill it  with sand or similar material when there's excess   energy we use that energy to power an electrical  resistive heating coil like the ones you would   find in a water heater that heats air which runs  through a closed loop system of pipes that heat   the sand to up to 1100° Fahrenheit storing  electrical energy as heat to use the energy   we have several options we can use it as heat by  warming up water in a separate closed loop system   like a district heating system or like we do with  a geothermal heat pump or we can convert the heat   back into electricity and use it to power our  lives but which is better by far it's better to   use the heat directly turning electricity into  heat is easy and has a very high efficiency of   about 100% but turning heat into electricity  makes you lose 30 to 50% of the energy you   put in so these batteries are best to store and  use heat directly so not to power your iPads and   charge your cars but to heat your homes or your  water of all the tech we cover energy storage is   near and dear to me because it's something we can  actually invest in today and if you're thinking   about batteries solar heat pumps or EV Chargers  our sponsor energy sage has your back they're a   long-term partner of the channel and energy sage  has helped many of our viewers and over a million   homeowners find a solar installer and everything  on energy Sage is free from educational content   to solar savings calculators all the way to  real quotes from trusted installers home owners   who use energy Sage on average save around 20% on  their solar system costs compared to going Direct   to an installer and it makes it easy to compare  quotes side by side so ditch the high pressure   salespeople by far the worst part about going  solar and instead have a trusted Advocate on your   side with energy Sage so whether you're curious  and want to learn or actually you're ready to shop   check out energy Sage for your energy Journey  use my special link in the description and get   started today huge thanks to energy sage and you  now back to the show so if you're not powering   Our lives our refrigerators and our TVs but only  heating our homes how valuable would that actually   be and it turns out quite a bit according to  the Energy Information Administration only 30%   of the total energy that we use every day goes to  things like lighting refrigeration and powering   our Electronics 9% goes to air conditioning and  nearly 60% that's almost 2/3 of all the energy   that we use at home goes to space or water heating  now that really surprised me and of course we're   talking about the total total share of energy not  just electricity when we narrow it down to just   electricity 19% goes to AC and 24% goes to space  and water heating okay so heat really important   we can store directly forget electricity just use  it as heat but why sand I know some huge thermal   storage systems just heat up water and others  use special types of bricks so why not use those   instead or something else sand is incredibly  abundant and cheap scientists estimate there   are roughly 7.5 illion cranes of sand on earth and  that is a astronomical number that 75 followed by   20 Z but sand isn't just widely abundant it has  some really killer thermal properties check out   this table where we compare dry sand with other  materials sand can absorb and retain significant   amounts of heat almost 1,000 Jews per kilogram per  every Dee C we heat it that's less than a quarter   of what you could store with the same amount of  water but is a catch and I'll highlight that in   a minute if you think you know what the catch is  sound off in the comments below and while you're   there hit that subscribe button and the bell icon  so you don't miss our future videos now having a   high specific heat capacity is both good and bad  for thermal energy storage it's good because it   means we can increase the temperature a lot with  a little Heat this is where it gets a little bit   interesting because s's thermal conductivity  isn't very great and I thought that might be a   bad thing because it limits how fast we can put  heat and take heat out but it turns out there's   more to it I found out that that there's problems  with thermal energy storage systems as they lose   heat through the walls but since sand conducts  heat very slowly it takes a long time for heat   to go from the battery's core to the walls which  reduces energy losses and makes the battery more   efficient more importantly sand can withstand  temperatures of up to 1,000° C sometimes higher   depending on the type of sand you can't heat water  over 212° F or 100° C without pressurizing it   because it'll boil in fact you can't heat liquid  water at all above its critical point of 374 de C   and 3200 PSI this helps us increase the overall  amount of energy we can store this also makes   the sand battery useful for mainly industrial  applications that require high temperatures   like steam reforming or a duro's chitic plastic  recycling technology that we covered in a recent   video also when heat from Storage is used to  generate electricity via steam turbines higher   temperatures improve turbine efficiency this  means more electricity output put for the same   amount of stored heat finally sand is non-toxic  nonflammable and as long as you clean it and it   doesn't have organic debris in it poses little  environmental risk and doesn't degrade or change   its chemical composition even after cycle after  cycle of heating and cooling what's not to love   but in engineering there's always a drawback or  a catch right so what is it here otherwise I mean   sand batteries would be everywhere sand batteries  have their challenges for one their round trip   efficiency that is the amount of energy you  put in that you can get back out drops pretty   significantly polar Knight claims their 8 Meg  hour battery has your roundt trip efficiency   or RTE of up to 95% that's better than lithium  ion batteries which fall in the range of around   80 to 90% but that's for Residential Heating  what if you want to use this S battery for your   home's electricity the best you'll be able to pull  with a Cutting Edge combined cycle power plant is   around 65% so it doesn't really make any sense  at all something that really scared me was the   risk involved yes sand isn't flammable or toxic  or yada yada yada but a giant insulated thermos   full of white hot sand can still be dangerous you  don't want water around a hot sand battery at all   because it's a ticking Time Bomb since the water  will nearly instantaneously boil and increase in   pressure these systems are obviously designed with  safety in mind what if there was an earthquake   or the walls crack at accidents do happen sand  batteries are big the bigger the better since mass   and capacity scale faster than the losses on the  surface this makes large batteries very efficient   but small units like ones for a home like maybe  one I could buy not so much remember that yes   sand is cheap but you still need heat pumps and  radiators and electrical coils to heat and cool   and everything else the unit itself is not going  to be particularly cheap especially as lithium ion   prices keep dropping on things like Tesla power  power walls or Mar Franklin Home batteries that   we have here and again the space is going to be  massive these lithium batteries can just hang   on a wall right outside your garage but you will  need a gigantic cylinder for the heat battery and   don't forget that all it could do really is take  care of the heating for water and your house what   happens in the summertime when you don't need  heat possibly not all that valuable and that's   really what it comes down to is we are competing  with a really mature technology in lithium ion B   batteries and ultimately it would only really make  sense depending on your use case maybe really cold   climates maybe in Canada parts of Northern Europe  where it gets really cold and cold is the driving   Factor so while sand batteries probably aren't  going to take off for residential use for the   reasons I mentioned where they really shine is at  the grid scale remember that sand batteries scale   really well they get better and more efficient as  they get bigger and one company is taking these   batteries to new heights by building the world's  largest sand battery polar KN energy recently   secured $8.2 million in funding for a large scale  sand battery in Finland the new battery will have   an output capacity of 1 megawatt it'll store  100 megaw of thermal energy so it'll be over 10   times larger than their first pilot plant from  2022 their new battery will be able to provide   heating for an entire town of 5,000 people for a  full week during the coldest winter this news is   right out of the oven but the batteries tested  and ready to be rolled out by mid 2025 but again   these Technologies don't exist in a vacuum a sand  battery even at the commercial scale will still   have to compete with the the amount of batteries  so how do they Faire well to really see we'd have   to compare to two of the world's largest energy  storage facilities the Edwards and sandburn solar   plus storage project in California and the Moss  Landing energy storage facility the Edwards and   sandburn project stores around 3200 megawatt  hours of energy and can output around 8 75   megaw of power and it's made of 110,000 lithium  onon batteries with around 30 KW hours of energy   storage each this system was expensive at an  average of $150 per kilowatt hour Theon batteries   the facility cost around 500 million or half the  total cost of the project how does that compare to   the larger sand battery at a cost of 8.2 million  for 100 megawatt hours the sand battery cost of   storage is around $82 per KW hour but that's in  including testing and development cost as well   the final commercial version will be much cheaper  and require much less maintenance how about size   here's an image of it on Google and when we factor  in both the largest and second largest lithium   on battery storage facilities in the world here's  what it breaks down to around 100 to 300 megawatt   hours per acre for lithium ion batteries the polar  Knight sand battery standing 43 feet tall and 49   feet wide can store about 2300 megawatt hours per  acre that's 10 times more energy in the same space   that totally caught me by surprise but again a big  Silo that you can build upward is a great benefit   for the sand battery and one that the lithium on  battery doesn't have and if you're wondering why   can't you just build lithium on batteries upward  well you got to cool them you don't want to run   away fire or any other kind of event to then  Cascade upward so these batteries are typically   well controlled and separated in the interest of  safety actually you know what I just had a thought   we've been thinking about batteries is storing  heat but it could just as easily store cold or   the absence of heat think about it like this what  if we pumped heat out of the battery and cooled   it off during the day and then in the summertime  when it was really hot in our houses we could pump   that heat from our house into the battery and then  cool it again at night when there's excess energy   heat and thermodynamics are freaking fascinating  it's one of the most fundamental forms of energy   and one that's not really fully understood but  just remember that heating in the winter time   especially in colder parts of the world is one  of the last bastions where many people believe we   need natural gas and if we could do something like  this with District heating imagine the benefit and   now that I thought about a cold battery in the San  Diego sumers I don't know maybe I'll dig a trench   and try it out but what do you guys think how does  this technology Stack Up and is this a big deal   I love follow-up videos because a company that we  talked about two years ago is actually getting it   done how awesome is that the next scale the next  chapter they're doing it and this might very well   be a common sight throughout northern Europe  in the coming years all right if you thought   that was cool check out this video next until next  week I'm R TR Vinci thank you so much for watching

Channel: Two Bit da Vinci

Views: 137,989

Keywords: two bit da vinci, sutainability, sand battery, batteries, nasa, polar night energy, solar power, wind turbines, thermal energy, geothermal, storage, home heating, energy storage, infrastructure, society, excess energy, solution, electric vehicles, VATAJANKOSKI, Heat, electricity, energy information administration, Air Conditioning, heating, waterheating, AC, Thermal Storage System, Sand, Grains, Desalination, capacity, conductivity, heat cunduction, Sand Battery - Future of Energy Storage?

Id: MFgWBHRhCn0

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024