<story><title>&apos;Freeze-thaw battery&apos; stores electricity long-term for seasonal release</title><url>https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/04/freeze-thaw-battery-stores-electricity-long-term-for-seasonal-release/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jessriedel</author><text>For more on the general problem of storing thermal (rather than electrical) energy on a seasonal basis see&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Seasonal_thermal_energy_storage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Seasonal_thermal_energy_storag...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was especially surprised to learn that serious attempts at storing heat in &lt;i&gt;soil&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;rock&lt;/i&gt; have been made&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Seasonal_thermal_energy_storage#Underground_thermal_energy_storage&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Seasonal_thermal_energy_storag...&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Drake_Landing_Solar_Community&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Drake_Landing_Solar_Community&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;which in the winter is able recover &amp;gt;40% of the energy stored in the ground through boreholes in the summer (&amp;quot;BTES Efficiency&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dlsc.ca&amp;#x2F;reports&amp;#x2F;swc2017-0033-Mesquita.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dlsc.ca&amp;#x2F;reports&amp;#x2F;swc2017-0033-Mesquita.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;Freeze-thaw battery&apos; stores electricity long-term for seasonal release</title><url>https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/04/freeze-thaw-battery-stores-electricity-long-term-for-seasonal-release/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>phh</author><text>It doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like the improvement of cost is enough the justify using it only for few cycles a year as the title says rather than every other day. That said, I see nothing in this article saying why it would be limited to seasonal release, I&amp;#x27;m guessing it just has a lower self-discharge.&lt;p&gt;The title made me thought of an idea my father had, for which I&amp;#x27;m still totally ambivalent:&lt;p&gt;Freeze water in the cellar (speaking of like 30m^3) using thermal pomp during winter to heat house and when electricity costs little, and use that ice in summer to cool down the house. I didn&amp;#x27;t run the numbers, but I&amp;#x27;d guess that if it was even remotely not a pure energy loss some other people would have already proposed such things.</text></comment>