posted in Technology
Finland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand battery
www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/finland-sand-battery-renewable-energy-storage.html
CNBCFinland’s radical answer to renewable energy’s biggest headache: The world’s largest sand batteryA small Finnish town has turned to the world's largest commercial sand battery to tackle a major hurdle in the energy transition: intermittency.
Replying to @sanitation@lemmy.today
You need district heating for this to work. Not every place has that, so it’s costly to install in places. You could use it to generate electricity, but then there are losses in the conversion.
Replying to @Flower@sh.itjust.works
I’d wager most places in Finland have district heating. Certainly true of Estonia and Finland is even further north.
Now individual homes here in Estonia usually aren’t connected to district heating, and not all apartment buildings are, but most are and more are joining because it turns out maintaining your own heating system is a burden most buildings don’t want to deal with (nobody usually even wants to head the association)
Replying to @Flower@sh.itjust.works
For Finland, 46% of heating is done with district heating, with it being as high as 90% in the bigger cities.
Replying to @JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
Germany: ~15%
France: ~6–8%
Netherlands: ~5–7%
USA: <1%
yeah, well usually district heating is a thing in places where heating is major energy consumer. Russia, Nordic countries, Canada and so on.
More temperate places don’t have district heating, since the heating need isn’t intense enough to warrant it.
The network is expensive to build, but the vast economies of scale make the actual on going heating more efficient and cheaper. Whatever the heating source might be. Be it fuel burning boiler or industrial scale heat pumps.