3 ms·
We had these storage heaters when I was a young kid, they we ripped out in the mid 90s when the village got gas. My Dad kept the bricks from them though, and a
by samwillis 4y ago
We had these storage heaters when I was a young kid, they we ripped out in the mid 90s when the village got gas. My Dad kept the bricks from them though, and a few years ago used them to build a Pizza oven :-)
I wander if as we switch to "green" electric if we will see a reappearance of them. Controlled on timers and via the internet, electricity providers could schedule and stagger the times they are heated up to level the demand.
- jonstewart 4y agoHeat pumps are ~3X more efficient and are hitting the sweet spot of economies of scale and incremental improvement. So, more likely would be water storage tanks powered by heat pumps, that store heat during the day (when temps are higher and solar power’s cheap), with release through the evening. If there’s a neat thing about these old resistive heat storage bricks, it’s the use of a fan to deliver hot air immediately.
- benj111 4y agoThe efficiency only matters assuming electricity stays expensive and constantly priced. If the economics of generation v storage work out that it's cheaper to overgenerate most of the time, efficiency isn't going to matter, demand shifting to when energy is cheap is going to be the key. So then it's a question of heat pump is battery storage v storage heater.