Random thought: Why don’t we have a server rack that runs at home but is managed by a company, then people or businesses rent them? Th important use case is that the heat generated can be used for home. Like property managers, business maintaining them are heat managers for home.
I had a similar random thought: Why don't we have a cloud company that does something opposite to what a Cloud company usually does. Instead of renting out resources from a data center, they help company setting up local resources and sell/rent out the unused capacity to other companies/individuals?
Probably a bit of a nightmare to oversight all the resources and ensure consistency and privacy but hey why can't we dream?
I feel like this idea would work better at a somewhat larger scale, like a small to medium datacenter heating an apartment or office building. The downside is for any of these systems is that when it's too hot outside that heat becomes a liability so you'd have to have the infrastructure to divert heat as well. The other downside is that you'd be replacing a very well understood technology with minimal maintenance requirements with a relatively complex technology with more extensive and complex maintenance requirements.
A lot of us live in older homes without good insulation. Somewhere in the mid 1900s we simply forgot that "plaster interior wall directly on brick exterior wall" does not provide insulation.
1920s era homes are even worse, single hung windows in wooden frames, no insulation, no conception of managing airflow.
Modern homes are much more efficient, but they're a bit impractical to buy these days, and are increasingly built so shitty that their lifespan is less than their inhabitants.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit... - This shows a breakdown. HVAC is not the most [edit: as in majority, it has the largest share though], but it is a significant amount. Also my household is apparently well below average (though still higher than you) for the US and our region in the US.
I think it would just about break even on an economy 7 night rate saving about 17p/kWh shifting load to the overnight rate. (Might save more on a smarter tariff.)
A 12kWh system costs £5880 including VAT. Assume 95% round trip efficiency and 80% cycle each night gives savings of £565 annually.
That's about the same as the cost of a loan at 5% for the total amount paid back over an estimated useful life of 15 years.
This assumes it doesn't need servicing in that time and you can DIY install.
I don't know whether home systems like this will get much cheaper as the batteries themselves probably only make up about 20% of the system cost.
There are huge economies of scale for utility scale storage with all in project costs now down to $125/kWh meaning 12kWh would cost just $1500 rather than $6600 for this home system. So I wouldn't be confident the price differentials between day and night rates will remain as high over its expected lifetime.
My night tariff is 6.67p/kWh compared to 28.36p/kWh for daytime.
I don’t think these differentials will last either but I do like the idea of smart charging when there is too much wind. I suspect these grid storage systems currently being built won’t handle these peaks and will be designed for the average case so there will still be periods of cheap electricity.
My supplier already controls my car this way and charges it on a schedule it defines each night and also ad-hoc during low demand.
There is also some benefit to have a backup system for when the power goes out which happens a few times a year.
30 kWh per day sounds about right. I have resistive heating and holy heck is it expensive in the winter months, which are short and mild. I plan to replace it soon.
But yes, most of that would be heating and cooling single family homes. Many built during a time when insulation was an afterthought. Now homes are well insulated, but they are larger.
Random thought: Why don’t we have a server rack that runs at home but is managed by a company, then people or businesses rent them? Th important use case is that the heat generated can be used for home. Like property managers, business maintaining them are heat managers for home.
I had a similar random thought: Why don't we have a cloud company that does something opposite to what a Cloud company usually does. Instead of renting out resources from a data center, they help company setting up local resources and sell/rent out the unused capacity to other companies/individuals?
Probably a bit of a nightmare to oversight all the resources and ensure consistency and privacy but hey why can't we dream?
I feel like this idea would work better at a somewhat larger scale, like a small to medium datacenter heating an apartment or office building. The downside is for any of these systems is that when it's too hot outside that heat becomes a liability so you'd have to have the infrastructure to divert heat as well. The other downside is that you'd be replacing a very well understood technology with minimal maintenance requirements with a relatively complex technology with more extensive and complex maintenance requirements.
- Power fail-over (battery + generator backup) in every house?
- Could get expensive flying a technician to every household to upgrade hardware in the racks
- Probably don't want everyone at home having physical access to storage devices
- Massive theft risk
- Homeowner's insurance would probably be irked
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o
Data centre in the shed reduces energy bills to £40
Hard "no" to subscriptions and "cloud management" for shit. On-prem ownership or bust.
This reads like an ad, but the following passage stood out
> the average US home consumes about 889kWh per month, or about 29.2kWh per day
I assume most of that is HVAC? I use about 1500kWh a year, but I don’t need aircon and heating is district heating.
A lot of us live in older homes without good insulation. Somewhere in the mid 1900s we simply forgot that "plaster interior wall directly on brick exterior wall" does not provide insulation.
1920s era homes are even worse, single hung windows in wooden frames, no insulation, no conception of managing airflow.
Modern homes are much more efficient, but they're a bit impractical to buy these days, and are increasingly built so shitty that their lifespan is less than their inhabitants.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit... - This shows a breakdown. HVAC is not the most [edit: as in majority, it has the largest share though], but it is a significant amount. Also my household is apparently well below average (though still higher than you) for the US and our region in the US.
In Scotland it looks like I use 10kWh minimum (not in), 20kWh on a “normal” day and more when I charge the EV.
Family of 3 in a Bungalow.
I’d love a system like this to charge on my cheap overnight tariff and use during the day. Solar just isn’t worth it here.
I think it would just about break even on an economy 7 night rate saving about 17p/kWh shifting load to the overnight rate. (Might save more on a smarter tariff.)
A 12kWh system costs £5880 including VAT. Assume 95% round trip efficiency and 80% cycle each night gives savings of £565 annually.
That's about the same as the cost of a loan at 5% for the total amount paid back over an estimated useful life of 15 years.
This assumes it doesn't need servicing in that time and you can DIY install.
I don't know whether home systems like this will get much cheaper as the batteries themselves probably only make up about 20% of the system cost.
There are huge economies of scale for utility scale storage with all in project costs now down to $125/kWh meaning 12kWh would cost just $1500 rather than $6600 for this home system. So I wouldn't be confident the price differentials between day and night rates will remain as high over its expected lifetime.
My night tariff is 6.67p/kWh compared to 28.36p/kWh for daytime.
I don’t think these differentials will last either but I do like the idea of smart charging when there is too much wind. I suspect these grid storage systems currently being built won’t handle these peaks and will be designed for the average case so there will still be periods of cheap electricity.
My supplier already controls my car this way and charges it on a schedule it defines each night and also ad-hoc during low demand.
There is also some benefit to have a backup system for when the power goes out which happens a few times a year.
> I use about 1500kWh a year, but I don’t need aircon and heating is district heating.
That's 171 W on average, that's about the same as my refrigerator (~150 W on average).
Can confirm. HVAC https://imgur.com/a/yI2AX6D
30 kWh per day sounds about right. I have resistive heating and holy heck is it expensive in the winter months, which are short and mild. I plan to replace it soon.
But yes, most of that would be heating and cooling single family homes. Many built during a time when insulation was an afterthought. Now homes are well insulated, but they are larger.
Do you intend to replace your resistive heat with a heat pump?
https://archive.ph/cbQOY
I thought they already did home batteries, and after looking at their other stuff I'm a bit confused; how it this different from eg. https://www.ankersolix.com/products/f3800?variant=4970232981... ?
One has wheels and 6 kW and the other has no wheels and 10 kW.
Am I the only one skeptical of having Chinese tech at the gateway of my home infra?
What about the potential for fire inside your home? That scares me more.
Just don't let it connect to Internet and you're done
And also never let any Bluetooth devices near them because they constantly try to connect when powered on.