The Earth’s interior is extremely rich, both in terms of materials and resources in general. However, there is a massive bunker that we never got access to that would be used to store our luggage energy Most valuable. After knowing the monster that is 1000 times stronger than lightning, we now want to focus on this source that will continue with us for thousands of years, even if we do not know how to reach it.
Renewable energy faces a dilemma: How can we store it for the long term?
Long-term energy storage is one of the major challenges facing the energy transition and expansion of renewable energy. The intermittent nature of sources such as wind and solar energy makes it necessary to develop systems that allow energy to be stored when there is a surplus in production.
The ideal would be, later on, Release it when demand increases. Traditionally, batteries or pumped hydropower plants have used hydrogen or storage in the form of hydrogen. These are techniques that are being implemented continuously in both Spain and other European countries.
However, these technologies have scalability, cost or efficiency limitations, making their large-scale implementation difficult. For this reason, in recent years new proposals for large-scale, long-term storage have emerged, among which are sand-based thermal batteries.
The underground bunker: a huge inexhaustible battery
One of the most promising technologies for large-scale renewable energy storage These are called sand batteries. It is a thermal storage method that uses sand as a storage medium and we recently discussed a similar solution.
The process is done as follows: mirrors are used to focus solar energy and heat the sand to high temperatures of 500-600 degrees Celsius. This hot sand is then stored in large insulated containers. When power is needed, air or water is circulated through the hot sand.
from here, Sand acts like a big battery Which can store the sun’s heat for hours or even days. This stored heat is then released when needed to produce electricity. Sand batteries make it possible to overcome the interruption of renewable energies such as solar or wind energy.
Europe is full of projects to take advantage of sand bunkers
Sand battery technology has begun to be applied in experimental and demonstration projects around the world. One of its pioneers is the Finnish project in Kankanpaa, where a large sand battery was built Up to 100 MWh of thermal energy can be stored.
The system consists of an insulated container filled with sand, with buried pipes carrying hot water. When there is a surplus of solar or wind energy, it is used to heat water which is then pumped into the sand, heating it to high temperatures.
The sand acts like a large battery, storing heat for use when needed. In Kankaanpää, stored heat is used to heat homes and buildings in the municipality during the cold months. Initial results are promising. Which shows that the system can store and release heat.
The project is expected to expand and serve as a model for applying the technology in other regions. Other pilot projects have been developed in Denmark, Germany and Poland. Although the technology is still at an early stage, the potential for providing clean energy storage solutions in large quantities is huge.
As you can see, our subway hides an excellent storage opportunity energy In the form of a natural bunker, not like this other bunker that Sweden built to store it. However, until now there have been few attempts to reach it, although scientists continue to explore new methods. Will the day come when we can do that? We first had to explore geothermal energy, which was heading in the same direction.
