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Electric water heaters have long been in demand response programs, but new upgrades improve their ability to shift energy based on real-time conditions without

Electric water heaters have long been in demand response programs, but new upgrades improve their ability to shift energy based on real-time conditions without leaving customers with cold water. Roughly 18% of household energy goes towards water heating, though many buildings still use fuels like natural gas. Would love to hear more on this point. Which companies are doing the integration?

jillesvangurp 3y ago
There's a lot of activity around this topic in Europe. E.g. several companies with innovative products in the UK, Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Also changing regulations around gas are creating incentives for houses to modernize. A lot of home owners are spending lots of money in this new market. One company that was promoted on the Fully Charged Youtube channel a few times is Myenergi. They have a range of products around managing energy in your house. If you combine them, you can do things like defining rules for when to use solar energy from your roof to charge your battery, heat your boiler, charge your car, or sell it back to the grid. Seems like a smart solution. There are many such solutions in the market. Nice channel to check out if you want to know more about this. They regularly review products and solutions in this space.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Mixergy is one: https://mixergy.co.uk/mixergy-tank/ https://mixergy.co.uk/mixergy-tank/
stephen_g 3y ago
For my house, I put in a heat pump with a decently sized storage tank and all it takes is a simple timer - it comes on at 10am and heats until the tank is at least 60 degrees C (for Legionella prevention). This works to power it entirely from my solar almost all the time (I've only had it for a year, but I think in that time over 98% of my water heating would have been directly from my solar). Where I am, there tends to be surplus solar energy in the grid at that time anyway, so where I am at least, you don't even need anything super smart that tracks real-time energy pricing or anything. As long as you avoid the morning and evening peak, which this always does (it's finished heating usually well before 1pm, and the peak doesn't usually start until 4pm at the earliest in Winter).

jillesvangurp 3y ago

There's a lot of activity around this topic in Europe. E.g. several companies with innovative products in the UK, Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Also changing regulations around gas are creating incentives for houses to modernize. A lot of home owners are spending lots of money in this new market. One company that was promoted on the Fully Charged Youtube channel a few times is Myenergi. They have a range of products around managing energy in your house. If you combine them, you can do things like defining rules for when to use solar energy from your roof to charge your battery, heat your boiler, charge your car, or sell it back to the grid. Seems like a smart solution. There are many such solutions in the market. Nice channel to check out if you want to know more about this. They regularly review products and solutions in this space.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Mixergy is one: https://mixergy.co.uk/mixergy-tank/ https://mixergy.co.uk/mixergy-tank/

stephen_g 3y ago

For my house, I put in a heat pump with a decently sized storage tank and all it takes is a simple timer - it comes on at 10am and heats until the tank is at least 60 degrees C (for Legionella prevention). This works to power it entirely from my solar almost all the time (I've only had it for a year, but I think in that time over 98% of my water heating would have been directly from my solar). Where I am, there tends to be surplus solar energy in the grid at that time anyway, so where I am at least, you don't even need anything super smart that tracks real-time energy pricing or anything. As long as you avoid the morning and evening peak, which this always does (it's finished heating usually well before 1pm, and the peak doesn't usually start until 4pm at the earliest in Winter).