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Comment by spsgtn | Hacker News Reader

Some areas of TX have a capacity factor of 50% !

Underrated comment. Texas can't build transmission lines fast enough to export their wind power, and some utilities are giving power away for free at night because of it.

Living in Texas, while almost every provider has a free nights plan now most won't give you very aggressive daytime rates that make them worth it compared to other averaging plans (Unless you have on premis solar). Air-conditioning during the day still drives the bulk of residential consumption. I'm waiting on energy storage like zinc-bromide to mature and drop in price or something better to come along.

There is a datacenter in AZ that takes advantage of low cost night power. They have giant underground tanks full of a proprietary solution that they cool down at night, and then during the day the use it to keep the DC cool. My guess is it's just antifreeze and water, mineral oil, or something similarly boring.

It turns out this is pretty cost effective.

It should be almost trivial for a refrigeration mechanic to build a home scale system like what you have described to take advantage of free / cheap night time electricity.

It's just a heat pump with the cooling side heat exchanger immersed in glycol & water,storwge tank and a pump. Maybe some insulation. Add a heat a set of heat exchanges fir a secondary loop in to the house.

I know absolutely nothing of cooling and refrigeration, but it is an area I've been thinking of transitioning my career towards (burned out SysAdmin) and learning as a trade.

What you just described is something I actually overheard a couple of guys talking about at a neighborhood pub. A/C and Energy efficiency are bit topics in Central Texas as other posts mentioned.

Do you have any articles you'd recommend for someone with a passive interest in renewables that may cover residential projects like this?

One of my previous jobs was infrastructure maintenance in a data centre, I've worked closely with refrigeration mechanics quite a bit.

I'm at work at the moment, let me get back to you when I'm home.

Cheers!

What about the controller? Also, why not use ammonia? I can imagine that condos could also use this in places like SF.

Industrial refrigeration components are very modular, controllers capable of handling this sort of set up are available off the shelf.

The whol set up is pretty much identical to a chilled water data centre cooling set up but with a smaller chiller and a larger chilled water reservoir.

Ammonia would probably be better, I was just thinking on terms of something a fregierstion mechanic could hack together as a proof of concept in a couple of weekends.

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