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Seems most useful for those with time of use billing for their electricity. And heat pump water heaters can be even more efficient.
There’s a company taking this further in making a fully integrated hot water and home heating heat pump system: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/heat-pumps/these-new-double-duty-heat-pumps-can-warm-both-air-and-water
Until batteries get cheaper, it could be a better return per $ to look at a system like this.
I don’t understand the mechanism they expect to use to draw the energy back out of the water heaters and the article doesn’t seem to mention it. TEGs arent very efficient. Water heaters don’t get hot enough for steam generators. I guess you could use the hot water to supplement house hold heating via radiators. But that becomes a complex system. Anybody got any ideas about what they might be talking about?
They seem to just be looking at hot water production alone for typical home uses. By heating (or even overheating) that water when renewable supplies are abundant using smart controls for time of use plans, it offsets more energy production for far less money than batteries would cost.