zlacker

>>PaulHo+(OP)
Perhaps I am missing something; this product already exists as the Sunamp Thermino.

https://sunamp.com/en-gb/hot-water-solutions-thermino-range/

>>chicke+jq1
It also exists, as described in the headline, as a tank of heated water.

The phase change stuff has positives like taking up less physical space but it's also a much less mature tech than storing hot water.

>>ZeroGr+ev1
Indeed.

In the UK there was a unfortunate trend of ripping out these energy storage devices and replacing hot water tanks with on demand electric hot water heating ( only heat the water you need ). And new builds often have no tanks ( as it saves space in the new tiny homes ).

Very short sighted in my view - a very simple way to store energy and everyone uses hot water directly.

>>DrScie+SF1
it also reduces peak load - you can heat water up slower with a lower powered heater. I have a 35 liter warm water tank in my garden shed that pulls about 3.5kw - an equivalent on demand heater would need 14kw or more.

>>Xylaka+yr3
I don't see why that matters. You use the same amount of energy and the demand is smoothed out at grid scale (yes I know about tea in ad breaks).

>>IshKeb+w85
Houses in the UK typically have 100A supply and the whole local grid is sized assuming people use relatively small amounts of electricity. If everyone gets an electric car and a massive heat pump, lots of local transmission will need upgrading

>>ifwint+Ha5
Right but unless everyone is drawing large amounts of power at the same time it doesn't matter if you use 1kW for 10 hours or 10kW for 1 hour. To the grid they look the same.

One interesting case where "at the same time" actually does happen is overnight car charging. Some chargers are configured to start charging exactly when a cheaper tariff kicks in, which causes big transient issues for the grid. I think modern chargers have a random delay to help with that.

>>IshKeb+NI5
Yep but while that is true at the level of the overall grid, actually the nearest part of "the grid" might be a local transformer that only serves 10-100 houses.

At that scale, it's definitely possible that you all plug in your electric cars and turn on your heat pumps more or less at once on a cold evening after work and start cooking your local transformer. Not my day job but I think it is a potential issue when everything is sized assuming ~2kW average demand or something