Sand batteries store renewable electricity as heat, offering a way to supply energy to factories and district heating networks when needed.
I’m not entirely clued in on what the benefits of sand are over molten salt batteries which have the key benefit of a phase change and generally better thermal conductivity in liquid form, but an interesting article none the less. A good reminder that we need more than just (electrochemical) batteries to handle a complex energy grid.
The main benefit is cost. A sand battery mainly consists of dirt. Dirt is cheap. Like, dirt cheap.
MIT’s David Sadoway, " if you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt".°
Also, China now monopolized the world dirt supply.
Good thing there’s no looming sand shortages around the world
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/12/global-sand-crisis-land-reclamation-extraction
Can’t just use any old sand for construction, that’s why there’s a shortage. For a sand battery I assume the requirements are significantly less strict.
That’s a very different issue. You can use pretty much anything for sand batteries.