A Finnish brewery, Nokian Panimo, partnered with climate-tech company TheStorage, to pilot a sand-based thermal energy storage system for beer production. The system used hot sand in silos to generate steam, potentially reducing energy costs by 70% and carbon emissions by 90%. The technology could be scaled up for various industrial applications, such as food processing or power generation. The first industrial-scale pilot plant using moving sand for heat transfer technology was installed at the brewery in January for real-world testing. The sand battery stores energy in the form of heat and enables renewable electricity to be integrated with applications that require high temps. However, the technology is not currently commercially available on large scales, but developers are optimistic about scaling it.