Engineering360: "District heating with the world’s largest sand battery"

To be cost effective, the area to be served must already have a district heating infrastructure in place. There must also be a source of excess electric power that would otherwise be lost/wasted from which the sand can be electrically heated. The first installation in Pornainen, Finland had estimated capital costs of about 8 million Euros. Not sure what this larger installation will require for capital costs, but given the higher output that is double the first unit, and heat capacity of 2.5 times, seems like a 16-20 million Euro price tag is not unreasonable. It will be an interesting experiment, but I'm afraid it has limited applicability.