Comment by maallooc
5 years ago
>I don't mind if my hot water tank super-heats water in the middle of the day for the rest of the day.
Water does not have the capability to store much energy.
>If electricity is really cheap, my freezer can jump into overdrive.
Your freezer can't if it's not a ammonia refrigerant. You will actually be wasting energy.
>I don't care if my fridge/freezer takes a break
Your fridge actually does not use electricity constantly. It detects the temperature and run the motor, stops it when it reaches the desired temp. It's already having a break.
It's common here to have 150L+ water tanks. Can take it from 50C to 75C and then let the anti-scald valve temper the output when drawing.
OK on the freezer. Could still take the fridge down to 2C.
The concept of the fridge taking a break while running other loads is to reduce peak draw current. If everyone did that, it would make the grid more stable.
The general point made here is really interesting though - a large number of our appliances (domestic and small business) can easily be time-agnostic if built for it. It may take a decade or two to replace the fleet but boy, just think of the opportunities replacing every appliance globally presents - this is on the order of a new Tesla (the disruptive company) for each appliance.
Scheduling exchanges, where your local grid sub-station can get your bids for usage and put it into a grid wide exchange, scheduling your car to charge itself at 3:34 am using 24Wh or whatever.
We become ever more interconnected - this is the real rental economy - renting not a lawn mower for an hour but renting power. You think privacy is bad on your phone - wait till your washing machine sends "soiled underpants on at 3pm - any bids" to half the planets solar providers
- Washing machines (Replace the concrete with water balloon, choose latest time to complete)
- Lights (mostly I think these will be LEDs drawing off a panel on our roof. We don't need that much light.
- too tired to do this but a study on this must exist somewhere?
Actually lights consumes more than fridges in terms of residential electricity.
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No it won't. Actually, the grid doesn't give a f about your fridge. Residential electricity usage is only 37% and fridges use about 9% of that.
> Water does not have the capability to store much energy.
Systems that make ice at night and use it for A/C during the day date back to the 1950s.
The general class of these facilities is phase-change materials. Water is pretty amazing, both for ice and for steam.