<story><title>The humble water heater could be the savior of our energy infrastructure woes</title><url>https://www.salon.com/2021/07/04/the-humble-water-heater-could-be-the-savior-of-our-energy-infrastructure-woes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stdgy</author><text>Am I the only one that find this article incredibly confusing?&lt;p&gt;It starts off talking about wanting to move energy production to renewable sources. Great, I&amp;#x27;m with you so far. A major issue with renewable energy (solar and wind) is that they&amp;#x27;re variable, not constant. This results in uneven power. The wind doesn&amp;#x27;t blow, it&amp;#x27;s cloudy or it&amp;#x27;s night time. So we need a way to convert this variable renewable energy into constant energy that&amp;#x27;s accessible around the clock. An obvious solution to the problem is to convert the renewable energy into stored potential energy. This is what pumped hydroelectric dams are all about. Use the variable energy to pump a bunch of water up behind a dam, then release it when you need a more constant supply of energy.&lt;p&gt;Great, so we&amp;#x27;ve got that much figured out. The world needs a way to convert renewable energy into constant energy.&lt;p&gt;And the solution to this problem is... the distribution of more efficient water heaters.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Wat&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do more efficient water heaters in any way, shape or form help solve the renewable variable rate energy to constant energy problem? I feel like I must be missing something obvious. Are we able to somehow store energy in heat-pump based water heaters and then extract that energy to run other items in our homes? When you store energy in a heat-pump based water heater does it not need to run at night when renewable energy sources are lowest?&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain to me what the heck this article is talking about?&lt;p&gt;I feel like I&amp;#x27;m missing the larger picture, but I don&amp;#x27;t see how these two concepts (energy storage and appliance efficiency) are related.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bluGill</author><text>&amp;gt; How do more efficient water heaters in any way, shape or form help solve the renewable variable rate energy to constant energy problem? I feel like I must be missing something obvious&lt;p&gt;A large portion of our world energy use is to make heat. Thus if you can make the heat you need when there is plenty of renewable energy available, and then store it for use latter that is a large win.  Sure we can&amp;#x27;t turn that heat back into electricity (false, but they are not worth talking about), but since heat is the goal that doesn&amp;#x27;t matter.&lt;p&gt;This is well understood.  My parents have been on a off-peak water heating program since 1988 (in all those years they only ran out of hot water 5 times, and nobody was trying to save water). Based on that experience, just the hot water a family uses in a day is in the 300-800 liters range (go high - running out of hot water for the day sucks).  Heating your house is a lot more though - 40000 liters is a low end estimate I&amp;#x27;ve seen.&lt;p&gt;You won&amp;#x27;t be cooking food, powering your car, or lighting your house this way, but it is still a cheap and useful way to store energy. It is also something we can do for the world using yesterday&amp;#x27;s cheap technology.</text></comment>
<story><title>The humble water heater could be the savior of our energy infrastructure woes</title><url>https://www.salon.com/2021/07/04/the-humble-water-heater-could-be-the-savior-of-our-energy-infrastructure-woes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>stdgy</author><text>Am I the only one that find this article incredibly confusing?&lt;p&gt;It starts off talking about wanting to move energy production to renewable sources. Great, I&amp;#x27;m with you so far. A major issue with renewable energy (solar and wind) is that they&amp;#x27;re variable, not constant. This results in uneven power. The wind doesn&amp;#x27;t blow, it&amp;#x27;s cloudy or it&amp;#x27;s night time. So we need a way to convert this variable renewable energy into constant energy that&amp;#x27;s accessible around the clock. An obvious solution to the problem is to convert the renewable energy into stored potential energy. This is what pumped hydroelectric dams are all about. Use the variable energy to pump a bunch of water up behind a dam, then release it when you need a more constant supply of energy.&lt;p&gt;Great, so we&amp;#x27;ve got that much figured out. The world needs a way to convert renewable energy into constant energy.&lt;p&gt;And the solution to this problem is... the distribution of more efficient water heaters.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Wat&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do more efficient water heaters in any way, shape or form help solve the renewable variable rate energy to constant energy problem? I feel like I must be missing something obvious. Are we able to somehow store energy in heat-pump based water heaters and then extract that energy to run other items in our homes? When you store energy in a heat-pump based water heater does it not need to run at night when renewable energy sources are lowest?&lt;p&gt;Can anyone explain to me what the heck this article is talking about?&lt;p&gt;I feel like I&amp;#x27;m missing the larger picture, but I don&amp;#x27;t see how these two concepts (energy storage and appliance efficiency) are related.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>evandijk70</author><text>The idea was that you run the water heaters at a time when demand for electricity is low, and supply is high. The water will stay warm for quite some time and can be used later. For example - run the water heater at 3am during a windy night, so people can shower in the morning</text></comment>