Could sand be the battery of the future?

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What's coming up:

• EU Commission offers €3bn for Clean Tech projects.

• Meme - Solar bear.

• Could sand be the battery of the future?

• The Cleanest Weekly Bites.

EU Commission offers €3bn for Clean Tech projects.

The European Commission is offering €3 billion (£2.6bn) for innovative, large-scale cleantech projects to support efforts to end the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

It has launched the third call for projects under the EU Innovation Fund, covering topics including decarbonisation, innovative electrification in industry and hydrogen, cleantech manufacturing, and mid-sized pilots.

Projects will be assessed by independent evaluators based on their level of innovation, the potential to avoid greenhouse gas emissions, operational, financial, and technical maturity, scaling up potential, and cost efficiency.

The funding will be open for projects located in EU member states, Iceland and Norway until 16th March 2023.

Meme of the week.

Could sand be the battery of the future?

Four young engineers believe they have a possible answer to one of clean energy's biggest challenges.

The challenge is how to provide a year-round, steady power supply from renewable energy during changing seasons and variable weather conditions. The answer nestling in the Vatajankoski power plant, 270 km (168 miles) northwest of Finland's capital, Helsinki, is remarkably simple, abundant, and cheap: sand.

The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery consists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes, and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.

Renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes. Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside.

So could this be the battery of the future?

The Cleanest Weekly Bites.

• Norway has raised its target for cutting climate-related emissions to at least 55 percent by 2030. The government announced its new commitment just days before the start of COP27 in Egypt. Its previous goal was to cut emissions by between 50 percent and 55 percent before the end of the decade. Link

• Plastic manufacturers in Germany will soon be forced to pay towards litter collecting. Starting in 2025, a new bill will require makers of products containing single-use plastic to pay into a central fund managed by the government. The fund will collect an estimated €450 million (£392 million) in the first year, which will contribute to the cost of cleaning up litter in streets and parks. Link

• The village of Modhera in western India's Gujarat state has become the country's first to run entirely on solar energy. India, the world's third-largest carbon dioxide emitter, aims to meet half of its energy demands from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, by 2030. Link