As global energy demand accelerates, one truth remains underappreciated: heat is the largest end use of energy. Today, more than 50 percent of global final energy consumption is dedicated to ...

Lithium-ion batteries dominate headlines, but most global energy storage relies on simpler methods. These methods include pumped hydro, compressed air, gravity, and thermal storage using sand or rock.

Heat batteries quietly solve a major transition gap, storing surplus renewable electricity as heat.

A Finnish-Swedish consortium has designed a hybrid system that uses photovoltaics and solar thermal energy separately to provide steam to industrial facilities. The PV unit is coupled to a sand-based ...

A research group from Ghana has developed a solar PV-powered steam cooker (ISESC) with sand-based thermal energy storage (TES). “The potential of sand, given its thermal stability and low cost, has ...

For more than a century, fossil fuel companies have drilled oil and gas wells to increase the production, consumption, and export of fossil fuels. These wells are often abandoned once they are no ...

The systems, which can store clean energy as heat, were chosen by readers as the 11th Breakthrough Technology of 2024. We need heat to make everything from steel bars to ketchup packets. Today, a ...