RIYADH: Producing electricity from hot sand is being made possible in Wadi Al-Riyadh.

Although in the experimental stage, the idea of producing electricity from sand is gaining ground, according to a website.

The experiment is attributed to Hani Al-Ansari, professor at the engineering college of King Saud University (KSU) who claims he got his invention patented in the United States.

His project of heating sand particles, or what is known as PHR, is expected to benefit people in remote villages. “This will reduce the consumption of diesel as fuel and protect the environment,” he is quoted to have said.

Producing electricity from hot sand is one of the most modern methods in the world, he said, adding that it is aimed at producing clean energy with the use of a number of reflective mirrors. The method involves hot sands heating up generators and push air pressure to rotate the turbines to produce electricity.

Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) gave encouragement to this idea, which helped implementation of the project to provide alternative source of electricity production, the report said.

SEC’s Executive Chairman Ziyad Al-Sheiha is stated to have visited the project site.

Al-Sheiha said the project of producing electricity from sand has been supported in view of the accelerated strategic shift of the company to look for alternative and renewable energy sources.

The cost of electrifying villages being high, such projects could meet their requirements, he said, emphasizing that the experiment has shown that the production of electricity from sand is feasible and economically viable.

One such project could produce around 10 mw electricity, which is sufficient to meet the requirement of small villages.

“Under the PHR, sun rays are focused on towers where red sands are kept for heating to around 1,000 degree Celsius. Compressed air is then passed from the pipes around the heated sands. This creates speed and big pressure. This air is then pressed into turbines to produce electricity,” the report said.

The design of PHR was successfully tested in Georgia College of Technology in the United States, the report added.

According to reports, researchers at the UAE’s Masdar Institute have already demonstrated that desert sand from that country could be used to store energy at temperatures of more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) in concentrated solar power facilities, or CSP.

CSP plants utilize arrays of mirrors to focus the sun’s energy to a central storage tower.

As needed, the energy then is used to heat water into steam and turn turbines to generate electricity.

Using local sand as a thermal energy storage (TES) material, rather than the synthetic oil or salts currently used, might provide a big boost to solar energy because it would reduce costs.

According to Masdar, the researchers in the Sandstock project analyzed the sand with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, which reveal the dominance of quartz and carbonate materials.

They found that the sand’s chemical composition indicated that not only could it be used to store concentrated sunlight, but that it even could be used to absorb it directly.