A seasonal thermal energy storage will be built in Vantaa, which is Finland’s fourth largest city neighboring the capital of Helsinki.
The total thermal capacity of the fully charged seasonal thermal energy storage is 90 gigawatt-hours. This capacity could heat a medium-sized Finnish city for as long as a year. Broken down into smaller energy units, this amount of energy is equivalent to, for example, 1.3 million electric car batteries.
The project cost is estimated to be around 200 million euros, and it has already been awarded a 19-million-euro investment grant from Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Construction of the storage facility’s entrance is expected to start in summer 2024. The seasonal thermal energy storage facility could be operational in 2028.
Why can’t we store energy generated by wind turbines this way?
I live in Denmark and we sell electricity to Germany but when it is windy, Germany asks Denmark to stop their energy production because prices are getting too low. They actually pay turbine owners money to not make electricity when its windy!
Why not simply convert the unsaleable e ectricity it to heat and store it to be spend when its needed as heat?
Because there is no “simply store” yet. Efficiently storing energy is not really solved. There are lots of snake-oil companies with braindead ideas (like lifting blocks of concrete to build a tower). But heating water and storing it like this seems like a feasible option. Very cool but expensive… I do hope it works.
The problem with heating water is, afaik, that its not that easy to convert it back into electricity.
It’s not easy but we are trying!
https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/205499-highefficiency-engine-turns-waste-hot-water-into-electricity
That’s cool as hell.