Finland has inaugurated an industrial-scale sand battery this week in the southern town of Pornainen, where it'll take over heating duties from an old woodchip power plant for the municipality. It's set to reduce carbon emissions from the local heating network by as much as 70%, and is the largest…
Large scale three phase energy generation is always something rotating in sync with the grid. Easiest way to do that is to spin turbine+generator.
All nuclear, coal, biomass power plants just heat water to 300-800°C and push it through turbine.
The thing is that it is really quite robust, and there isn’t any other good solutions to it. They do have quite a lot of loss, but the cooled water after process (still over 100°C) can be used in other industries or district heating improving the efficiency.
Hydropower just spin the turbine with water flow. Wind directly spins the turbine, which is good for efficiency. Solar panels are still quite inefficient, but because they just use space, they make lot of sense even with poorer efficiency.