A huge battery for heat storage in the eco-village in Boekel will heat 36 houses. After more than a year of construction, the colossus is almost ready and the first houses have been connected to the system.
Marja Generaal lives in one of the houses of the eco-village in Boekel. When she opens the door, it immediately feels cozy and warm. “Yes, I am the first to get the heat from the battery,” she says. “I consider it an honor.”
“I just control how hot it is with the thermostat.”
Yet you hardly notice in the house that this heat comes from that one large block of concrete. “It works just like central heating for me,” says Marja. “I just control how warm it is with the thermostat.”
The mega battery is an invention of Cees van Nimwegen. “It is great that it is now ready and working.” This is how the mega battery works:
- There is a huge round colossus in the neighborhood. Five meters high with a diameter of eleven meters. It contains 400 cubic meters of concrete.
- About 2000 meters of pipes run through the concrete.
- 600 solar panels provide electricity that passes through the metal tubes. This current heats the concrete to about 450 degrees.
- Air blown through the tubes heats up a barrel of water. That water is sent to the houses to heat them.
The battery is not quite ready yet. “The solar panels still have to be connected to the system. The concrete is now heated to 100 degrees. “We can already heat the first houses this winter with it,” says Cees.
“It’s simple technology and it works.”
The mega battery is a solution to one of the biggest problems with sustainable energy. Most solar energy is generated in the summer. While the demand for energy is greatest in winter. You solve this problem by storing the energy as heat in the block of concrete in the summer.
“I’m a bit proud of it,” says Cees. “It’s simple technology and it works.” He also notices that there is now a lot of interest in the system. “In Sint-Oederode they have now also started building a battery for twenty houses.”
The only drawback is that the battery has quite a bit of space and you have an ugly block of concrete in the neighborhood. “Haha, I don’t think it’s ugly at all,” laughs Cees. “You can dress it up by, for example, growing ivy against it. Whatever you can think of.” In the eco-village in Boekel they want to build a new community house around the battery.
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