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What if instead of batteries you hooked up a boiler to heat water or a deep chest freezer to cool water and then used heat exchangers to heat or cool overnight
by jrs235 4y ago
What if instead of batteries you hooked up a boiler to heat water or a deep chest freezer to cool water and then used heat exchangers to heat or cool overnight when solar doesn't work? I'm assuming no one does this because batteries are likely cheaper than this type of setup.
- Syonyk 4y agoYou're welcome to do that, and it's something some off grid systems use, but the energy storage in that sort of thing is fairly poor. Go do the math on it, but you'll find a 55 gallon drum of water, from "room temperature" to "really darn hot" holds 15-20kWh of energy. It's useful, but not a staggeringly large amount for a typical house, that can easily use more than that on a single day's heating. Thermal mass storage requires a lot of mass to do anything useful, or the ability to run exceedingly high temperatures. Or a phase change. Molten salt storage can store a lot of energy, but you're at "very hazardously hot" temperatures with "stuff that's mind-bogglingly corrosive when hazardously hot." It's not the sort of thing most people would want to mess with at home. Myself included, and my tolerance for experimentation is pretty darn high.
- Someone 4y ago> It's useful, but not a staggeringly large amount for a typical house, that can easily use more than that on a single day's heating. This article isn’t talking about typical houses of today. The typical future house should be a lot better insulated.
- aaronblohowiak 4y agoThe ground is massive and digging a trench can be done.. those systems for storing heat seem to be gaining some traction