4 ms·
There’s one aspect about the energy use of warm water that this article glosses over: warm water is particularly easy to store. Heat is also a byproduct of many
by Xylakant 6y ago
There’s one aspect about the energy use of warm water that this article glosses over: warm water is particularly easy to store. Heat is also a byproduct of many industrial processes- reusing and storing that heat or warming up your boiler at peak energy production time is an efficient way to make use of “waste” energy. This significantly reduces the effective energy usage of any warm water usage.
There’s also ways to efficiently turn electricity into heat - heat pumps for example. These “produce” around 3-4 joule of usable heat per joule of electric energy. Just using a heat pump instead of an electric heater cuts the mentioned energy costs to a quarter.
- nicoburns 6y agoSolar hot water panels are also pretty effective. You get water hot enough for showering even on cloudy days here in the UK.
- jotm 6y agoIn countries with a lot of suntime, it can be as simple as a black tank/radiator outside. 3-6 months of free hot water with absolutely minimal investment.
- VBprogrammer 6y agoMaybe electric cars will bring in the days of home CHP. The combination of a natural gas combustion engine with a good use for the waste heat can be circa 90% efficient.
- calaphos 6y agoHere in Germany we commonly have negative electricity prices at exchanges and with a increasingly higher percentage of renewable energy is will only become more common. It would be very easy to use the energy to heat up warm water in the already existing warm water boilers just by adding a cheap electric heating element to the usual gas burner. The necessary smart meters for billing are actually mandatory in new installations. However with current consumer electricity prices completely removed from the large scale exchanges and more expensive than ever I don't see that happening right now.