General > General Technical Chat
This doesn't make sense - NYT article about a solar installation in the US
james_s:
How do they stop people from simply bypassing the thing once they've signed up to get the benefits? Air conditioners are simple enough devices I don't see what they could do to lock out the compressor that wouldn't be trivial to bypass. You can even push in the contactor with a screwdriver and the compressor will start up.
Marco:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on October 31, 2021, 06:11:18 pm ---Freezing water is well known to burst pipes so I guess it would be non-trivial dealing with that.
--- End quote ---
There's already systems out there for non residential use, so I assume they solved it.
You could put lots of air filled flexible hoses in the water volume and along the container wall (no need for steel then) to give the pressure somewhere to go perhaps?
Bassman59:
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on October 31, 2021, 05:17:23 am ---
--- Quote from: james_s on October 31, 2021, 01:47:49 am ---Probably a lot less difference than you might expect. Besides, even if everyone is in the office building they can't all just stop heating and cooling their houses. A large number of people have pets and they are generally comfortable under the same sort of conditions that humans are comfortable, you shouldn't let your house get scorching hot or freezing cold if your dog or cat is home.
--- End quote ---
You could only heat or cool the room they're in.
--- Quote ---Regarding storing air conditioning as ice, calculate how much ice you need to store say 6 hours of 36,000 BTU/hr, so over 200k BTUs of cooling for a modest house in a moderate climate.
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It would be far more practical than using batteries to power air conditioners, it turns out that pound per pound, ice would store about the same as using batteries to operate air conditioners, but the ice is a few orders of magnitude cheaper, has no inherent limitation on lifetime, can be left at any "state of charge" for extended periods of time without degradation, and can be cycled indefinitely. The only real disadvantages are that it's only useful for HVAC (so not a complete replacement for batteries) and (for now) the lack of premade solutions that use it.
One ton of ice (about 1 "IBC tote" worth) would provide 288 kBTU of cooling, that's already more than your example.
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Where am I going to store this water?
bson:
Of course the grid needs to be upgraded to handle a large number of small power providers. The problem is if you upgrade it people will consume more power, and that's bad. PG&E's profits are decoupled from its energy sales, so it has no incentive to sell more. Just about everyone with an interest in energy conservation are opposed to investing in anything that might cause more energy consumption, regardless of whether it's to charge a Tesla or run a heater. This of course makes sense, because the incremental power for every new Tesla plugged in comes from a fossil-fuel generator somewhere.
thm_w:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 01, 2021, 07:41:30 am ---How do they stop people from simply bypassing the thing once they've signed up to get the benefits? Air conditioners are simple enough devices I don't see what they could do to lock out the compressor that wouldn't be trivial to bypass. You can even push in the contactor with a screwdriver and the compressor will start up.
--- End quote ---
What stops you from just bypassing your electrical meter and not paying for electricity at all.
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