DC nanogrids: Why and how DC power will become the new AC power for your home.

[@bikingcat3283]

Great to see a KZbinr covering this. I understand the power companies having to cut back on people selling energy into the grid. It adds complexity to load management and someone has to pay for the power lines. A major company does computer power backup with DC power. They actually wire entire office spaces to use DC. A few small communities, somewhere in Northern Europe, made up of around 30 households do micro grids.

[@airspool]

Yes, utilities and grid operators are in a tough spot. On the one hand, they're working to lower emissions from burning coal or even natural gas to not increase the parts per million of CO2, which is now a whopping 70% above what they were from the beginning of time to the 1850s (at about the beginning of the Industrial Age), but on the other hand, wind and solar are unpredictable and variable sources, and because of that, they're not as easy to manage. Storage is becoming a reality for grid level, too, but strangely and surprisingly, I think when you put a whole package together, and take into account all of the regulation, bureaucracy, fiscal intermediaries, and oversight at the grid level, you'll see that the homeowner is going to be able to both produce and store a kilowatt-hour of power for about the same, or even less, than for what a utility-scale PPA provider, etc. will be able to do it. And of course, utilities can create local DC nanogrids, too, which may be beneficial for everyone. It'll be interesting to see. And I think it will happen quickly, even though the grid's taken 140 some years to form.

[@bikingcat3283]

@@airspool Current load management systems are being pushed with the power company having control via IOT. A smart home system should negotiate reduced power consumption during grid loads. I think a small community could pool resources for a flywheel peak energy storage system for mornings and having a fossil fuel generator for emergency. I'm in southern USA where it rarely snows. 10% of home electrical use goes to resistive heating of water. There is so much solar hot water potential that washing and rinsing clothes in hot water should be the norm. I see no political effort to conserve energy without a profit motive somewhere. Green energy solutions are held under patents. Given that imminent domain is used constantly, I can't understand why it can't be used for patents. Once open source technology has been patented. An example is phase change salt mixtures, it was open source and now held under patent.

[@airspool]

Lots of creativity is coming now in the storage space. Flywheel is a good idea for more R&D. And, yes, not many are doing a good job of managing the capture and storage of condenser waste heat for our heat pump for hot water storage. We'll get there.

[@SG-sg9st]

Thanks Dave for the info!

[@wellusee]

Sounds good!