Smart appliances are a good idea in principle but rolling them out will take a long time. Water heaters last 10+ years. I don't think there are even any widely available on the market today which will automatically increase the temperature at mid day in anticipation of an electricity shortage later. And it's a safety hazard in homes with small children; hot water temperature should never be hot enough to cause burns when someone turns on the faucet.
Most homes don't have enough free space for a big pile of rocks to increase thermal mass. My home has pretty good insulation but on hot days we're going to be miserable without AC in the evening regardless of how much we chilled the house down earlier.
In France, every electric meter have been (or is going to be) replaced with a new one named Linky.
Linky is an electric meter connected to the grid through PLC but it embeds the required hardware to eventually drive appliances consumption.
It provides a dry contact which can be open or closed remotely via the grid’s PLC. So it can be open or closed even without internet.
You can imagine to use this contact to drive a power line dedicated to your water boiler, electric car …
IIRC, atm, the only provided possibility is to open/close the contact via a web API / a smartphone app. But in the future, it may become controllable by the electricity provider to be automatically opened / closed based on the grid’s state (and the electricity price)
That's great! While probably hard to watch anywhere outside of Germany, there is a mini TV series about what will happen when we all got our smart electric meters:
And before anyone replies that it won't come that far, please consider three things:
- We are using an AC power network, not a DC one.
- The power grid is the backbone of modern society.
- Try to find one big technology deployment which was deemed "safe" and actually kept that promise. Because I can easily find countless counter examples reaching from the Titanic to your latest game console.
The dry contact I'm talking about is totally opt-in. It's a physical contact that is not used by default. You can, if you want, wire it to a power line on which you can plug a subset of your appliances.
So the surface attack of this feature is that an hacker could stop you water boiler to heat or your car to charge, but you'd just have to plug them to the rest of your (still working) network.
And yes, the electricity provider could probably switch off your provisioning remotely. But that's not a novelty. That was always possible. Now it can be done safely.
And I'd like to add that the Linky is NOT connected to the internet. It's connected to the electricity provider network so you need to control the electricity provider in order to hack the meter. But at this point, if you gain control of the network, there is no interest in hacking the meters.
> So it can be open or closed even without internet.
A binary solution is far less efficient than one where the consumer decides if he's willing to pay the spot price or not. Especially if that is controlled from afar.
Shaping demand with prices is how free markets work. Shaping demand via some remote bureaucrat's decision to randomly cut people off is socialism.
> Any it's a safety hazard in homes with small children; hot water temperature should never be hot enough to cause burns when someone turns on the faucet.
That’s a matter of forced mixing. The temp coming out of the hot water heater itself should have very little to do with the faucet temp in 2021. (Yes I realize it still does)
The device is called a tempering valve. It's already necessary if you want a child-safe temperature in the bathroom, because such a temperature is below the leigonella-inhibiting temperature of the storage.
> I don't think there are even any widely available on the market today which will automatically increase the temperature at mid day in anticipation of an electricity shortage later.
Why should there be? Electric rates are fixed 24/7. All the power company has to do is provide an API to get the spot price, and start varying the electric rates according to supply. The market will adapt.
> Most homes don't have enough free space for a big pile of rocks to increase thermal mass.
Criminy. Do I have to design it, too? Most homes have a basement or a crawl space.
Walter, the things you're saying are patently untrue. Many, many countries and municipalities do not have fixed pricing, so you're looking at this from inside a personal bubble, which does not reflect reality for the rest of the world. So with that in mind, what you're actually proposing is a solution that works for some homes, in some municipalities, under very specific circumstances.
I can't imagine anyone wanting to start a business strictly based around a last-mile solution, when other solutions already exist and are substantially more efficient and scalable.
You're also assuming that the regulatory bodies for each municipality inherently want things to be efficient and customer-friendly, but that's just not how it works. In the US alone, all you need is to look at the disaster in Texas this past winter, where prices jumped to 180x their usual rates -- and for brazenly nefarious reasons.
> Walter, the things you're saying are patently untrue.
Want me to show you my electric bill? Fixed rate, 24/7, in every place I've lived, for my entire long life. California, land of the rolling blackouts because they can't match demand with supply, also has fixed electric rates.
> is a solution that works for some homes, in some municipalities, under very specific circumstances.
Oh come on.
> I can't imagine anyone wanting to start a business strictly based around a last-mile solution, when other solutions already exist and are substantially more efficient and scalable.
Look at the endless variety of thermostat innovation for your HVAC system. Even internet connected ones. Why would you suggest that simply automatically adjusting the thermostat based on spot prices for electricity is inefficient and unscalable?
> You're also assuming that the regulatory bodies for each municipality inherently want things to be efficient and customer-friendly
I infer no such thing. I suggested making changes.
> where prices jumped to 180x their usual rates
And I bet none of those customers had thermostats connected to the spot price of the electricity.
Do you know that the pump price of gas varies every day? That's demand shaping. And it works.
Give me a break, Walter. I explain that you're viewing this from within a bubble, and your response is to insist that you're not in a bubble because you, personally, haven't lived somewhere without fixed rates? That's the definition of a bubble argument and self-centeredness.
If you really think your ideas are unique and revolutionary and "correct," then I recommend going down to your local utility and pitching them heated rocks, instead of trying to convince the internet that you're right about everything -- see how long it takes for them to stop laughing.
As an aside, my father invented, developed and sold a heated rocks system over 40 years ago. It definitely worked, but the concept itself proved to be too inefficient, impractical and non-scalable, and because of that it never got adopted beyond a few off-the-grid folks. So, when I say that your ideas would only work in very specific circumstances, that's based on actual historical information, not some imagined universe where the entire world is exactly the same as you, personally, have experienced.
> you, personally, haven't lived somewhere without fixed rates? That's the definition of a bubble argument and self-centeredness.
So, the 5 states and 2 foreign countries I've lived in are a self-centered bubble? I'll turn that around. Where in the US are variable, minute by minute electricity pricing which can be remotely queried?
> see how long it takes for them to stop laughing
First they ignore you, then they laugh, then they race to implement it. What I see in this thread is "electricity rates are fixed 24/7, that's the way they've always been, anything else is inconceivable".
Frankly, why should the utility care? They'd probably profit quite a bit from massive government money to develop grid storage batteries.
It is typical for solar heated homes to use rocks/concrete for heat storage. Traditional adobe homes with thick earthen walls also are very, very good at being a heat sink and source, making the home comfortable. As mentioned elsewhere, I have a Swedish masonry fireplace which uses masonry to store the heat and slowly release it. It's a simple heated rock system. The Swedes have used that design for centuries.
As for your father's invention, I have no idea what went wrong with it. Perhaps a couple manufacturing engineers having a look could improve it quite a bit. After all, rarely does the first iteration of a concept be very practical.
You're proposing nothing but hypotheticals based on what a utility SHOULD care about as opposed to what they ACTUALLY do. And it's an exhausting amount of mental gymnastics.
As for my father's invention, the reason it didn't catch on was for the same reason that piles of rocks don't actually scale -- it's incredibly inefficient, as is every other rock-based thermal storage. Just because it's a functional method of accomplishing a task, doesn't mean it's the best method, and what you've repeatedly asserted is that YOUR idea should be the best method simply because you say so.
Same as Macron's: spending time and effort on reliable generation (i.e. nuclear) instead of wasting it on feel-good drop-in-a-bucket non-solutions. Every single one of those houses can be cooled or heated up if you have energy available on request, no need for massive piles of rocks here and there
It also means more thermal losses and huge thermal masses required to make any difference.
Walter, you are making up science in your head that does not actually exist. I would highly encourage you to do some actual research before you continue to make these incredibly uninformed comments.
> Because it takes 3-5x as much energy to heat rock than water
And 100% of that energy gets recovered as it slowly returns to ambient temperature.
You're confusing heat with temperature.
> you are making up science in your head that does not actually exist
You should be careful about making such statements. You're quite wrong. The heat going into the rock will be 100% returned. All of it. Where do you imagine it will go?
No, Walter, you're confusing energy with temperature. If it takes 1 kWh of electricity to increase the temperature of water by 1 unit (thereby releasing 1 unit of heat to the atmosphere), it takes 3-5 kWh of electricity to increase the temperature of a rock by 1 unit. That's called inefficiency.
I'm done trying to explain 6th grade Earth science to you. You're either trolling or extremely unwilling to accept reality, so unless you have actual evidence for any of your claims, please stop pretending that you're some super genius who knows better than every scientist and engineer on the planet.
The energy comes back out of the rocks in the form of heat. 100% of it. No losses. Energy in equals energy out. If you heat the rock by 1 degree, in cooling off 1 degree it will release 100% of the heat absorbed.
> you're some super genius who knows better than every scientist and engineer on the planet
I suggest you ask an actual thermodynamicist, not a 6th grader. I don't need to present evidence that conservation of energy applies. After all, it's the law.
This is getting beyond ridiculous, Walter, and you're making things up again. At no point did I or anyone else on the planet ever suggest that heating a rock by 1 degree will release less than 1 degree of heat.
As I've explained multiple times now, it's a matter of where the heat originally came from, and it requires 3-5x MORE ENERGY to impart the THE SAME AMOUNT OF HEAT to a rock as it does water. That's the entire point, and is the portion of thermodynamics that you keep pretending doesn't exist. I'm not sure how many more times or ways I can explain this to you, because you clearly don't want to accept that the original heat input doesn't magically manifest itself.
I've provided you with evidence for all of this, but you're still making the same baseless argument. Your ignorance of the subject is exhausting to engage with, so if that was your intent, I guess you win today's Troll Award. But you're still completely wrong about the science, you're unwilling to provide any evidence to back up your claims (because the evidence doesn't exist), you have no basis for your argument at all, and you should be ashamed of yourself for insisting otherwise in such an aggressively arrogant manner.
> At no point did I or anyone else on the planet ever suggest that heating a rock by 1 degree will release less than 1 degree of heat.
Yet you said it was only 20% efficient. Where did the 80% of the energy go?
> it requires 3-5x MORE ENERGY to impart the THE SAME AMOUNT OF HEAT to a rock as it does water
No, it doesn't. It's the same. Unless you've confused heat with temperature. Or you didn't try to heat the rock in an enclosed, insulated box, and the rocks were radiating the heat away almost as fast as it was applied.
"Heat is a form of energy that can be transferred from one object to another or even created at the expense of the loss of other forms of energy."
You finally provided some "evidence" and it literally says the opposite of what you're suggesting. I would highly encourage you to keep reading the subsequent pages on that site, because it goes on to explain the reasons why you're wrong.
> No, it doesn't. It's the same.
This statement is the entire premise of your argument, but is directly refuted by the source you provided, and is so ridiculously absurd that I can't take you seriously anymore. You have to be trolling.
Walter, I've already provided you with a mountain of evidence. You pasted a single sentence stating that heat can be transferred between objects, which nobody has ever refuted, and does not factor in any of the actual physics involved with that transfer -- and then you asked me to paste an entire article as a counterpoint.
Your gaslighting continues, and I'm beyond tired of it.
Brian, buddy, as just an outsider reading this thread I want let you know that Walter is right and you are coming across as rather confused. Also, your aggressive stance isn’t helping.
Walter is right about what, exactly? That heat can be transferred between objects? That heat can be released from objects? Nobody ever refuted those, and those are the only points he has made so far in defense of rocks being a be-all end-all solution which, again, doesn't factor in any of the actual physics involved which make it inefficient.
If you need evidence of that, feel free to read any of the provided materials, especially the concrete heat storage systems that have already been built which, unsurprisingly, use 2x as much electricity to store 50% as much heat.
So, unless you have actual information to provide, you saying I'm wrong doesn't add anything to the conversation.
If it takes X amount of energy to heat a material by Z degrees, then presumably the material radiates exactly X amount of energy back out when it cools down by the same Z degrees, no?
What does it matter that Y kg of rocks stores that energy at a lower temperature than Y kg of water? Or, conversely, that if you insist on having your energy-storage temperature set at some specific Z' degrees, you can store that amount of heat energy in much fewer kg of rocks than of water?
You're mixing up temperature and energy. They're not the same thing.
> Criminy. Do I have to design it, too? Most homes have a basement or a crawl space.
In Europe at least, the vast majority of people live in high-rise blocks, which barely have adequate parking space, never mind any room for electricity storage. None of your solutions are even close to practical from this point of view alone.
Not to mention, relying on the market to be rational really can't be the solution to keeping the grid functional. Blackouts are massively disruptive and potentially life threatening.
I don't, and most don't either: there is no room. We have hot pipes through which hot water is pumped. At best, the high-rise itself has a hot water heater, but even that probably only holds a few hours worth of water. Serious storage is only there at the neighborhood level.
In Arizona, everything was slab-on-grade because the ground was very, very dry. That's not so in most other areas.
The crawl space keeps the wood off the ground where it wicks up moisture and quickly rots. Cement wicks up moisture, too. Try a slab in Seattle, for instance, and your house will soon be uninhabitable from mildew.
> 30 percent of new single-family homes started in 2013 have a full or partial basement, 54 percent are built on slabs, and 15 percent have a crawl space.
> I don't think there are even any widely available on the market today which will automatically increase the temperature at mid day in anticipation of an electricity shortage later.
Our house built 7 years ago has an Enefarm fuel cell/hot water heater. Every house in our neighborhood and every house I’ve seen by the same builder has one. It approaches things a little bit differently but to the same effect. It learns your energy use patterns and turns on the fuel cell (using LP gas) when you usually use electricity, generating hot water as a side effect. The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.
> it's a safety hazard in homes with small children; hot water temperature should never be hot enough to cause burns when someone turns on the faucet.
Internally it stores water at 65 degrees C but mixes it with cold water to to supply all water to the house at a certain temp. We have ours set to 40C but you can change it on a control panel. Of course, there are mixing taps at the sinks/showers. It’s very common for shower temp controls here to have a extra stop at 40C that requires pressing a button to exceed.
> Most homes don't have enough free space for a big pile of rocks to increase thermal mass
I don’t know about cooling but the ones that take advantage of cheap electricity at night to store up heat and release slowly over the day are not massive.
Most homes don't have enough free space for a big pile of rocks to increase thermal mass. My home has pretty good insulation but on hot days we're going to be miserable without AC in the evening regardless of how much we chilled the house down earlier.