IceBear: ice energy storage

The electric grid managers went into a panic the very first time the air conditioners were turned on at the Arizona Diamondbacks' new Bank One Ballpark (1998; BoB is now called "Chase Field" [1]). The stadium people didn't realize they needed to let the electric utility know that they would suddenly be adding hundreds of kilowatts of electric power draw to the grid.

Some years later a chilled water plant was built to use off-peak electricity to chill a million gallons of water/antifreeze [2]. This is used to cool about 30 buildings in downtown Phoenix.

Ever since I heard about the ballpark's system, I wanted one for myself. This "IceBear" system looks promising.

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2011-07-12-al...

[2] http://www.imcor-az.com/experience/mission-critical/northwin...

With renewable energy on the rise, the next major technological hurdle is the so called "Duck Curve" or "Nessie Curve", where Solar Energy drops dramatically after 3:00pm but air-conditioning units need to keep running till well after nightfall.

In short: Renewable Energy is great, but its produced at a time when people don't need it. As such, there have been major investments into energy storage, such as Lithium Ion Batteries, Compressed Air, Pumped Hydro, Redox-Flow, and more.

IceBear is an energy storage tech for the air-conditioner. It runs the air-conditioner when power is plentiful: either at night (when wind energy is strongest) or even during the noon-sun if you've got enough solar panels. Then, the stored ice refrigerates the home for the next 6 hours (commercial unit) or 4 hours (home unit).

Here' is their product sheet for the IceBear 20 (Residential Unit): https://www.ice-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICE-BE...

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Comparisons to the Tesla Powerwall:

* IceBear only works on the air conditioner, while PowerWall works for whole home energy. But PowerWall also needs an inverter + additional equipment, while IceBear simply plugs into existing air conditioning units. Pricing isn't transparent, but it sounds like IceBear is overall cheaper.

* IceBear still needs ~300W to operate to move the stored cold energy to the ducts. It simply reduces the energy usage later in the day, rather than eliminate it.

* IceBear20 is estimated to have ~28kW-hrs of energy storage. PowerWall is 13.5kWhr.