Heat Pumps, Solar, and Battery Backup in 2024

[@jasonbroom7147]

Dumb regulations lead to dumb customer practices, so you can install more solar? That's dumb on steroids. Your comments regarding battery degradation only pertain to NMC, or other ternary battery types. If your customer is informed, and installs a battery array that utilizes lithium iron-phosphate chemistry, then your concerns are largely mitigated. LiFePO4 will get 3 or 4 times as many cycles as NMC or NCA batteries, so your $.30/Kwh of degradation cost is really $.10/Kwh, or less.

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

Yeah I agree the regulation is dumb in our area… can’t put it more than 120% of average usage. Lithium still degrades that’s what my comment was referencing, I still think batteries are a good option but wouldn’t recommend using your EV batteries as a battery bank except in power outages / as a backup generator so you have less wear and tear as opposed to daily use during peak demand. People can do what they want but I watched a webinar breakdown on it from Bill Gross (big proponent in the industry for green technology / energy storage), and he talked about that being the reason why they developed a storage of kinetic energy via stacking large heavy objects, really brilliant concept honsestly so simple.

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

www.energyvault.com/about

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

Energy vault is the kinetic storage it’s more for grids and utilities but it’s wild tech and very elegant solution. Of all the things I’ve seen that made me the most excited I think it’s going to revolutionize energy storage globally

[@jasonbroom7147]

@@TheHVACDopeShow - Saying that "lithium still degrades", without acknowledging the profound difference in rates of degradation between NMC and LiFePO4 is a disservice to your less informed customers, and insulting to your more informed customers. Most EV batteries (sold in this country) are using NMC, so it's a really bad idea to use them for your home's power supply, except in an emergency situation. We agree on that, but for home storage solutions, LiFePO4 is better than NMC by a factor of 3 or 4, plus it's the safer of the two technologies because it will not suffer thermal runaway. Just pointing out facts for your audience that you glossed over or omitted.

[@gspkg5815]

Can anyone explain how the power company has the authority to dictate your solar sizing? Am genuinely confused.

[@davidstewart1153]

The utility he talks about, Xcel, is a regulated monopoly so they are the only game in town if you want a grid connection. If you want a grid connection and solar, they need to approve the system design first. The Public Utilities Commission has oversight over Xcel's rules but Xcel has the lawyers and experts to testify about all the terrible events that might happen with too much solar. The carrot with the stick is you can sell excess power back to Xcel at 1:1 for now. Boulder has tried to withdraw from Xcel's grid but they couldn't do it entirely without paying Xcel for all the power lines and infrastructure. Other places do it differently.

[@davideyres955]

Also grids need to be well balanced. Too much solar will end up with too much power in the grid and then they have to shunt the power somewhere and that costs money and if they can manage it then things shut down. Grid tied systems typically shut down when there isn’t grid power so you have the capability to work off grid but you can’t.

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

What they said ^^ lol… if you want power during an outage just add a battery backup and automatic transfer switch.

[@eDoc2020]

I don't know the specifics but my hunch is they only dictate the maximum that can be fed back into the grid. If this is true then you can have as much solar as you want but you either need to use the electricity in the moment or store it in batteries for future use. Note that common grid-tie inverters don't support automatically limiting their output, you need more specialized equipment.

[@PHamster]

My Tesla batteries have an LRA requirement so it can power most single stage heat pump systems.

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

The Tesla Power walls are legit for sure! I’d still prefer an inverter AC over single stage for battery life but yeah the power walls are legit no doubt!

[@nope098]

I thought the power walls were essentially designed for regular daily on off? Why not use for time of use variability rates daily?

[@garyhiland6013]

At 4:21, pretty sure you mean kWhs, not kWs. 😑

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

Probably, I also mean coefficient not coefficiency lol which isn’t even a word… idk why I said that in the videos a few times but sometimes I think faster than I can talk😅

[@sullydee2237]

do you know of a ducted unit mini split that is 9k -12k thats in a seer 2 rateing of 30 or higher

[@TheHVACDopeShow]

I don’t that’s a pretty high seer rating. The slim ducted units will have the highest seer ratings probably in the 20~25 range