By: karthik

karthik — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:12:05 +0000

reading this makes me wonder at the great lengths we are going to make a buiding energy efficient. People in older times did almost nothing to make their houses efficient. They just used natural,local,durable materials and their hands to build their homes, which kept them warm in winters and cool in summers.

By: Brad Bergman

Brad Bergman — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 04:41:04 +0000

This is a completely ridiculous premise. While there is nothing wrong with either technology, there is nothing complementary about then either. The thermal storage aspect of generating ice at night uses extra power at NIGHT, not during the day when the solar cells are making their power. Even if you oversize the solar system, so that there’s enough extra energy being created during the day to power the facility through the night, that excess power is being pushed onto the grid, not into the thermal storage. The effect of both of these technologies is to increase demand on the grid at night; they do not offset each other. If anything they tax the grid connection even more than it would be without either technology, and the combination only exacerbates the arguments the utility makes against net metering. You’re abusing the transmission infrastructure and forcing ratepayers to cover your load-shifting scheme.

Comments on: Ice + Sun: A Clean Power, Energy Storage Combo

By: karthik

By: Brad Bergman