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The Effect of a Sand Battery on Electricity Conservation

Author: Alex Yang

Editors: Jonathan Chen, Justin Tai

Artist: Becky Li


The global paradigm shift to focusing on renewable energy has created opportunities and challenges in electricity consumption and storage. Solar and wind are considered the cleanest forms of energy, and yet, they are intermittent. The sun is not always present, and the wind is inconsistent; therefore, these sources do not have the capacity to constantly supply power. This demand-supply synchronization determines the critical need for efficient energy storage technologies. One of the most recent groundbreaking inventions in development is the sand battery, a new way of storing electricity and a method that makes renewable energy more reliable. A sand battery is not an electricity storage method, but instead uses thermal energy.

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The concept is basic yet brilliant. It uses solar panel or wind turbine electricity to heat massive quantities of sand or sand-like material to extremely high temperatures, around 500 degrees Celsius. Sand is heated because it is inexpensive, easily accessible, and retains heat well over great expanses of time. Since sand is a good insulator for heat, the stored thermal energy is well-conserved, allowing the energy to be stored for months at a stretch. The stored heat can then be relinquished and converted back to electricity or utilized directly for building heating, greenhouse heating, or industrial processes. Electricity storage in sand batteries has some significant methods.

One of the largest advantages of this method is the removal of wasted energy. Renewable energy sources produce more energy than the grid has any form of immediate use for. Without a good storage mechanism, the excess goes to waste, as electricity must be consumed upon generation unless it is stored. Sand batteries, in this sense, reserve the excess, allowing for a later time consumption for when there is greater demand. Overall, charging and releasing the energy creates more efficient renewable energy systems overall.

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The second general benefit is the reduced use of fossil fuel-burning power plants. Generally, coal or natural gas plants are used whenever the demand is more than can be achieved through renewables. This reliance contributes to carbon emissions and nullifies the environmental benefit of renewable power. They are therefore a bridge between inelastic demand for energy and flexible renewable energy supply, allowing it to be feasible to store electricity to allow renewables to provide a larger share of the overall energy mix. 

Sand batteries also facilitate conservation via grid stabilization. Power grids need to balance supply and demand in real time in order to run efficiently. Surplus or shortage of electricity leads to blackout or inefficiency. In absorbing energy in times of surplus and releasing it during deficit, sand batteries behave as dampers to such variations. It renders the use of electricity more economical and removes wasteful and costly grid instability problems.

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Traditional lithium-ion batteries, as handy as they may be, rely on the use of scarce and expensive materials such as lithium and cobalt. They are not only costly to produce and environmentally damaging, but are also constrained in scale in battery application. Sand is cheap, plentiful, and benign to the environment. The application of sand as a storage medium is a relief of natural resources with the provision of a cost-effective alternative for storage that can be compared to a method of saving not only electricity but also materials and ecosystems. Realistic applications of sand batteries are already being achieved in countries like Finland, where large-scale sand battery factories are being actualized for renewable energy storage purposes as well as district heating supply.

This success only goes on to show that the technology is not just promising on paper, but achievable in reality. Because the technology has yet to be optimized and scaled up, its potential for electricity conservation is endless. Societies can depend less on renewables, reduce the use of fossil fuels, and guarantee that the energy they generate is not wasted. By storing excess renewable energy, reducing wastage, reducing the use of fossil fuels, and stabilizing the grid, they allow for higher sustainability and efficiency in the use of electricity. The availability, low cost, and durability of sand make this technology extremely competitive compared to other storage technologies. While the world continues to search for cleaner and more trustworthy means of meeting energy needs, sand batteries offer a cost-effective path of proceeding by ensuring that not only is clean energy generated, but also stored for when it is actually needed. 

Citations:

National Renewable Energy Laboratory. (2024, March 28). Solution to energy storage may be

beneath your feet. U.S. Department of Energy.

De Chant, T. (2025, June 16). Finland warms up the world’s largest sand battery, and the economics

LiveScience Staff. (2025, September 6). A scalding hot ‘sand battery’ is now heating a small Finnish

Murray, C. (2024, November 20). Larger, 1 MW / 100 MWh ‘sand battery’ set for commissioning in

2025. Energy-Storage.news. https://www.energy-storage.news/larger-sand-battery-set-for-2025-

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