A post on The Conversation website recently reminded us how electric water heater batteries could help support short-term energy storage. This is a well-established topic, that has somehow gone out of fashion in the scramble for solar. Heat is a form of energy, and so if we can store it we are actually storing energy too, or so the theory goes.
Do Electric Water Heater Batteries Really Store Energy?
They sure do, although not in the form you could use to charge your phone. But, given the fact these water heaters can account for a third of household energy consumption, they are a significant part of the load.
Especially, according to a remark in The Conversation, that an 80-gallon one could store as much as a second-generation tesla powerwall. There should be a further knock-on if this encouraged householders with solar to switch from gas to electric heating.
And even if they did not have solar, there should still be a saving in grid energy consumption. But how would these ‘energy batteries’ work in practice, or is it just a pipe-dream-theory to knock about and discard?
How Would Hot Water Storage Work in Practice?
The general idea is to ‘charge’ electric water heater batteries during off-peak times, when the grid tariff is less. Or, even better if we have solar, to heat the water with surplus energy that might otherwise go to waste. Of course, the model is incomplete unless the grid is on renewables too, although it does in any case help smooth the load.
We’ll discuss the latest water-heating technology in the next post. Strange, isn’t it how gas heating was the smart thing to do a couple years ago, but is falling out of fashion? We need to think smart if we are to beat global warming. And move on from old ways that made a deal of sense a while ago.
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