Sand battery?

[pauljhaigh58]

Hi all been watching with interest about sand battery watched this video on iTunes would this be a way to keep small workshop/garage heated over night to keep condensation to a minimum ,your comment please

 

[Sideways]

Much cheaper to run a dessicant dehumidifier to keep the shop dry.
Unless your electricity is free, I'd go that way.
Though I think the sand battery idea has a lot of potential in various forms.
As we shift away from fossil fuels, this old storage heater technology will become important again. It needs to be updated with better controls and more efficient modern insulation to retain energy until we want it.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Doesn't seem to make much sense.

There are no efficiency gains in electrical consumption - kw are used to heat the sand which then releases kw as it cools down. Energy in = energy out!

It uses day time rate electricity to heat the sand when off peak rates may be cheaper

Without an accurate temperature and humidity forecast you risk wasting energy heating the sand when it is not required, or not heating the sand when it is, or heating the sand every day just in case.

IMHO a thermostatically controlled fan heater or oil filled radiator which comes on only as required would be better.

Only proviso is that if you have PVs it may be worth sending surplus generation to heat sand rather than selling it back to the grid. That way the energy used has a fairly trivial cost.