Some years ago, I helped with battery load tests in a nuclear power station. The constant test load was just a big (~500kW) heater. We burned the battery energy for 5 hours. So it's easy possible to do such things.
And the same thing for residential scale is literally just a ceramic space heater running at ~1500w.
They're dirt cheap, usually have temp safety checks built in, work on a residentially sized circuit, and are available everywhere.
I needed a cheap and consistent load to do LFP battery testing, and I could spend $5,000 for a real test unit, or $21 for a ceramic heater that will do basically the same thing.
If you've already got the monitoring for the batteries/inverters, a heater is a GREAT load choice.
I'm not sure that this really is a completely off-the-shelf stove element. But obviously, the technology is basically identical to what you'd have on your stove.
Depending on how powerful your air conditioner is, it would rapidly start cooling down the building to a temperature which is too low to still be comfortable. You could maybe buffer this with more thermal mass, but then you are back in the game of storing energy and might as well just get extra batteries.
Many heat pumps already have a mechanism for deliberately wasting energy for defrosting the coils. I bet that the same hardware with a different control algorithm could be convinced to heat out the outdoors without much net change in indoor temperature. (The solution involving the smallest amount of extra hardware is to run the system in reverse periodically. There are other solutions.)
Whether the negative energy price is enough to balance wear on the system and potential noise is a different question.
It only makes sense if you have ‘more than free’ energy you need to get rid of, because not getting rid of it causes problems. Similar to flaring natural gas, but for actual electricity.
This is not a common occurrence or situation, or shouldn’t be anyway, or someone is screwing up pretty badly somewhere.
Some years ago, I helped with battery load tests in a nuclear power station. The constant test load was just a big (~500kW) heater. We burned the battery energy for 5 hours. So it's easy possible to do such things.
Exactly this.
And the same thing for residential scale is literally just a ceramic space heater running at ~1500w.
They're dirt cheap, usually have temp safety checks built in, work on a residentially sized circuit, and are available everywhere.
I needed a cheap and consistent load to do LFP battery testing, and I could spend $5,000 for a real test unit, or $21 for a ceramic heater that will do basically the same thing.
If you've already got the monitoring for the batteries/inverters, a heater is a GREAT load choice.
HAAS CNC mills are famous for using electric stove elements for the spindle brake resistor: https://www.reddit.com/r/CNC/comments/1es1d01/someone_didnt_...
I'm not sure that this really is a completely off-the-shelf stove element. But obviously, the technology is basically identical to what you'd have on your stove.
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so you're installing a resistive heater? what is the economics of that?
500kw is nothing, that is 1/3000 of the nuclear power plant electric output.
Well in times of negative energy prices wouldn't it even be good if the air conditioning ran at full capacity?
Depending on how powerful your air conditioner is, it would rapidly start cooling down the building to a temperature which is too low to still be comfortable. You could maybe buffer this with more thermal mass, but then you are back in the game of storing energy and might as well just get extra batteries.
Many heat pumps already have a mechanism for deliberately wasting energy for defrosting the coils. I bet that the same hardware with a different control algorithm could be convinced to heat out the outdoors without much net change in indoor temperature. (The solution involving the smallest amount of extra hardware is to run the system in reverse periodically. There are other solutions.)
Whether the negative energy price is enough to balance wear on the system and potential noise is a different question.
Why not place the air conditioner next to a large electric space heater?
In summer? If its not getting to cold for you.
In winter yes also if its not getting to warm for you, but also heating water is easy enough. But you don't need that much hot water
Potentially also cooling down your fridge more and your freezer. But that is not that much energy.
While that works, it would still be quite a waste. It would be a lot better to save it and discarge it later
Yes, it's not much of an issue if you have free energy.
It only makes sense if you have ‘more than free’ energy you need to get rid of, because not getting rid of it causes problems. Similar to flaring natural gas, but for actual electricity.
This is not a common occurrence or situation, or shouldn’t be anyway, or someone is screwing up pretty badly somewhere.
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