- cross-posted to:
- climate@slrpnk.net
- collapse@sopuli.xyz
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.
- Colour_me_triggered ( @Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee ) English12•6 months ago
They’re calling it a “thermal energy storage” for grant money. It’s a sauna.
- jol ( @jol@discuss.tchncs.de ) English4•6 months ago
Well, powering all their saunas with this wouldn’t be too bad either!
- sexy_peach ( @sexy_peach@beehaw.org ) English10•6 months ago
200m isn’t very expensive, right?
- jupyter_rain ( @jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de ) English9•6 months ago
I think it depends. I am really no expert in costs for energy storage and it would really be interesting to see if this projects tackles high energy costs in the long run and in which way. But if I compare the costs with the costs of building this storage and costs of highways construction in Europe, just to put it in some perspective, it does not seem to be much money.
https://www.worldhighways.com/news/european-highway-construction-costs-evaluated
The information is old, but this sum would roughly buy you 20km Highway in Slovakia. Which is not much.
- RidderSport ( @RidderSport@feddit.de ) English5•6 months ago
Much cheaper than equivalent nuclear power plants or offshore wind parks
- Thorny_Insight ( @Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ) English3•6 months ago
Sure, though a battery only stores energy but doesn’t create it so the comparison isn’t ideal
- jupyter_rain ( @jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de ) English9•6 months ago
This sounds so cool. I really hope other cities and countries will do similar things, it sounds really neat to store electricity when it’s cheap and also use “heat waste” from datacenters and such.
- TheFerrango ( @TheFerrango@lemmy.basedcount.com ) English1•6 months ago
This will allow to Finland to benefit from global warming, the more the planet gets warm the more power they will manage to store.