Electric heat storage (Night Storage Heaters) (2019)
barrygraygillingham.com
barrygraygillingham.com
Because of their length they were usually installed in corridors, so they warmed corridors rather than bedrooms or living rooms.
I am not sure why stopped being popular but maybe it was the rise of heat pumps which are ubiquitous in most of the country now.
I like your license :-D
Finland's gigantic commercial "sand battery" stores heat for months. Hopefully their techniques can be adapted for smaller use cases, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61996520
Oh look, the article even says this: "Today's storage heaters have such good insulation that the only heat coming into the room is from air being blown through the hot core by an ultra-quiet low-speed fan the length of the heater with the warm air coming out of the bottousually m of the heater at floor level - even when the core is full charged the outside of the heater is usually barely warm to the touch - and never hotter than a water-heated radiator"
The issues and possibilities we are facing now are different: With heat pumps we can use electricity way more efficient than with resistive heating. When excess electricity is available doesn't follow a simple curve anymore but can be predicted only some time ahead.
I do not miss them one jot.
But needing to prophecy the weather of the morrow and being too hot or cold when not successful, no, that's on the technology.
Cool a big tank of water/ice using solar, so you can keep chiller aircon running overnight without using more electricity.
I think I've seen commercial versions of this (icebear?), but nothing domestic. In fact even domestic-sized chillers (for central hydronic cooling) seem rare.
If insulation products can enable safe, economical storage at very high temperatures, sand can be used for energy storage, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33696105
I wish the original article touched upon the electricity rates. If you can rely on off peak rates being less than 1/4 of the on peak rates, then I can see this making sense. Otherwise it seems better to use electricity more efficiently, exactly when needed.
I've been scoping out this company for some time, my boiler is currently in good shape but would love to switch down the road.
They heat up water via HeatPumps to required temp during the day when outdoor temps are higher and electric is cheaper. Max water temp can change based off excepted nighttime temp.
I really regret the choice, and wish I had gone with Artic with their integrated system for HVAC and water. It just makes so much more sense.
There are definitely not enough installers trained on heatpumps, and many just treat them as drop-in replacements for gas fired equipment, because that's what they know. It is rare to find someone who looks at the whole picture and also deals with the heat loss mitigation.
As it is a tankless water heater may be the easiest way to “fix” yours - or spend a big amount for a knowledgeable energy contractor.
I remember the website of one enterprising New Zealander, where he was using an under house water storage tank as a heat sink accessible by his heat pump!
Feolite
specific heat = 920.0 J·kg−1−1·°C−1,
density = 3,900 kg·m−3,
thermal conductivity = 2.1 W·m−1·°C−1.
maximum operating temperature 1000 °C.
Water
specific heat = 4184 J·kg−1·°C−1
density 1,000 kg·m−3,
thermal conductivity = 0.591 W·m−1·°C−1.
maximum operating temperature <100 °C unpressurised.That's an astonishing difference in capacity.
But then it can explode and destroy a small town.
Remember, hot water moved mountains.
My own opinion of the sector has been tarnished by repeated bankruptcies and constant haranguing to get a sodding smart meter installed.
In defence of smart meters, they allow half-hourly settlement, which was required for smart charging of EVs. I don't understand exactly why this was required, but we couldn't work with retailers that didn't have this in place.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/nov/23/uk-energy-cust...
No new Economy 7 meters are being installed now but smart meters can have an Economy 7 tariff set to achieve the same outcome. Storage heaters are still sold.
Overall heat loss would be lower, it could be an easier upgrade for homes with radiators, and could also serve hot water, at a wider range of temps than a normal tank type water heater.
> The device has been installed in the Vatajankoski power plant which runs the district heating system for the area. Low-cost electricity warms the sand up to 500C by resistive heating.. generates hot air which is circulated in the sand by means of a heat exchanger. Sand is a very effective medium for storing heat.. device could keep sand at 500C for several months. So when energy prices are higher, the [sand] battery discharges the hot air which warms water for the district heating system which is then pumped around homes, offices and even the local swimming pool.
If successful, phase 2 would to be to circulate that heat into the house.
Of course it's way less efficient than a solar water heater, but reduces a lot of the complexity/cost and potentially lets me dump excess solar.
Another thing to ponder is a sand ‘battery’ as a power / heat sink - lower heat capacity than water but doesn’t boil at 100C so can absorb more energy.
I wander if as we switch to "green" electric if we will see a reappearance of them. Controlled on timers and via the internet, electricity providers could schedule and stagger the times they are heated up to level the demand.
If there’s a neat thing about these old resistive heat storage bricks, it’s the use of a fan to deliver hot air immediately.
If the economics of generation v storage work out that it's cheaper to overgenerate most of the time, efficiency isn't going to matter, demand shifting to when energy is cheap is going to be the key. So then it's a question of heat pump is battery storage v storage heater.