The battery is 42 feet tall and 49 feet wide and can store up to a week’s demand of heat during winter months.Polar Night Energy , a Finland-based company working on renewable energy storage solutions, will now build a 100 megawatt-hour battery using crushed soapstone. The battery will be installed in Pornainen in the southern part of the country, where soapstone is an industrial byproduct.
Lithium-ion batteries have largely been deployed near renewable energy projects to store the excess energy generated when the sun shines brighter, or the wind is stronger. However, the solution has environmental concerns and is expensive. Previously,The sand battery consists of a tall tower filled with low-grade sand. When excess energy is generated, it generates heat using resistive heating. The heat is then sent through an exchanger, and the sand in the container is heated up.
In May 2022, PNE showcased this technology at a small power station in Kankaanpää town. Now, the company is ready to scale its technology to a one MW solution at Pornainen, in the country’s south.The upcoming battery built by PNE is 42 feet tall and 49 feet wide. With a power storage capacity of 100 MWh, the battery could store up to a month’s heat supply in summer months or a week’s supply during winter. The battery construction is expected to be completed in 13 months.