I have a modest set of solar panels on an entirely ordinary house in suburban London. On average they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each year. Obviously, we can't use all the power produced over summer and we need to buy power in winter. So here's my question: How big a battery would we need in order to be completely self-sufficient? Background …
The sand storage is used for district heating. It’s not much of a substitute for single homes that have electrical heating or are off-grid.
It’s a great way to balance both the electrical and the heating grids so that more electricity from renewables can be used to offset other means of heat production, but it needs to be done by the district heating supplier. I doubt it makes sense for individual houses.
When I was a kid my parents had electric resistance heat with some very effective thermal storage.
Each room had a unit about the size of a typical radiator. The unit was basically an insulated box with a small circulation fan. I’m not sure what was inside but always assumed some form of brick - they weren’t expensive so it couldn’t be anything exotic. At night when electric rates were low, whatever was inside the units was heated up. During the day, the only power usage was a small circulation fan controlled by the thermostat.
I just got a heat pump installed and thought thermal storage would be worth considering since I was also looking into solar, but contractors acted like they never heard of it, and there really didn’t seem to be any consumer units available.
The solar panels are another story. I don’t see how such a scammy (in the us) industry even exists. They make it really hard to give them my money
Yep, those look familiar. However for heat pumps I found one manufacturer in Canada plus a few experimental things
While I don’t have timebof use metering, I was looking into solar and it could be really useful for shifting the load so solar does most of the heating
The sand storage is used for district heating. It’s not much of a substitute for single homes that have electrical heating or are off-grid.
It’s a great way to balance both the electrical and the heating grids so that more electricity from renewables can be used to offset other means of heat production, but it needs to be done by the district heating supplier. I doubt it makes sense for individual houses.
When I was a kid my parents had electric resistance heat with some very effective thermal storage.
Each room had a unit about the size of a typical radiator. The unit was basically an insulated box with a small circulation fan. I’m not sure what was inside but always assumed some form of brick - they weren’t expensive so it couldn’t be anything exotic. At night when electric rates were low, whatever was inside the units was heated up. During the day, the only power usage was a small circulation fan controlled by the thermostat.
I just got a heat pump installed and thought thermal storage would be worth considering since I was also looking into solar, but contractors acted like they never heard of it, and there really didn’t seem to be any consumer units available.
The solar panels are another story. I don’t see how such a scammy (in the us) industry even exists. They make it really hard to give them my money
These are called “storage heaters”. They’re still available. https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/home-heating-systems/article/home-heating-systems/storage-heaters-aokoz3G2Em9L
Yep, those look familiar. However for heat pumps I found one manufacturer in Canada plus a few experimental things
Yep, those look familiar. However for heat pumps I found one manufacturer in Canada plus a few experimental things
While I don’t have timebof use metering, I was looking into solar and it could be really useful for shifting the load so solar does most of the heating