The humble water heater could be the savior of our energy infrastructure woes
Am I the only one that find this article incredibly confusing?<p>It starts off talking about wanting to move energy production to renewable sources. Great, I&#x27;m with you so far. A major issue with renewable energy (solar and wind) is that they&#x27;re variable, not constant. This results in uneven power. The wind doesn&#x27;t blow, it&#x27;s cloudy or it&#x27;s night time. So we need a way to convert this variable renewable energy into constant energy that&#x27;s accessible around the clock. An obvious solution to the problem is to convert the renewable energy into stored potential energy. This is what pumped hydroelectric dams are all about. Use the variable energy to pump a bunch of water up behind a dam, then release it when you need a more constant supply of energy.<p>Great, so we&#x27;ve got that much figured out. The world needs a way to convert renewable energy into constant energy.<p>And the solution to this problem is... the distribution of more efficient water heaters.<p><i>Wat</i><p>How do more efficient water heaters in any way, shape or form help solve the renewable variable rate energy to constant energy problem? I feel like I must be missing something obvious. Are we able to somehow store energy in heat-pump based water heaters and then extract that energy to run other items in our homes? When you store energy in a heat-pump based water heater does it not need to run at night when renewable energy sources are lowest?<p>Can anyone explain to me what the heck this article is talking about?<p>I feel like I&#x27;m missing the larger picture, but I don&#x27;t see how these two concepts (energy storage and appliance efficiency) are related.