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Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

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Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#31

Post by ortusdux »

dubswithus wrote: post #18
pavon wrote: post #8

As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

I have a hot water recirculator installed and love it. It's even faster than on demand. Faster hot water incentivizes hand washing. Just think about how many more people would wash their hands at the airport if they didn't have to wait 2 minutes (or forever) to get hot water.

I'm looking at going this route before I finish the basement. The master shower is the furthest point from the heater, and it takes a solid 2-3 gallons to get hot water in the morning. The math didn't make sense until I put in a heat-pump water heater. Now I average $170/year to heat my water, and the recirc should only add ~$30/year. My pipes are well insulated, but I'm in a colder climate so loosing heat into the walls just lowers my heating bill.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#32

Post by ars »

rightbyte wrote: post #25
htk wrote: post #3

The whole thing seems so inefficient but I am not an expert. Can anyone here expand on this?

You can sink solar power into it in the summer and use the heat in the winter. With intermittent power like solar and wind you probably want to be able to sink it somewhere useful.

It has 80 hours of storage - that's not enough summer/winter shifting. At most it's day/night.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#34

Post by socialdemocrat »

konschubert wrote: post #15
pavon wrote: post #8

As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

As a German living in a city with mandatory district heating... the end result is to be that people seem pay more for heating than they would with a decentralised system. I think that's mostly due to the high upkeep costs of the system, though, the transmission loss is quite manageable, I think. Of course there are arguments to be made that when accounting for the cost of installing a heating system, and the space it…

Here in Norway we generally pay LESS when we have district heating.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#36

Post by bluSCALE4 »

ortusdux wrote: post #31
dubswithus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hot water recirculator installed and love it. It's even faster than on demand. Faster hot water incentivizes hand washing. Just think about how many more people would wash their hands at the airport if they didn't have to wait 2 minutes (or forever) to get hot water.

I'm looking at going this route before I finish the basement. The master shower is the furthest point from the heater, and it takes a solid 2-3 gallons to get hot water in the morning. The math didn't make sense until I put in a heat-pump water heater. Now I average $170/year to heat my water, and the recirc should only add ~$30/year. My pipes are well insulated, but I'm in a colder climate so loosing heat into the w…

I installed a recirculating pump and had it on the timer. But then for some reason, I switched it to always on and it's so much nicer. Hot water is always hot.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#37

Post by Nick87633 »

dubswithus wrote: post #18
pavon wrote: post #8

As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

I have a hot water recirculator installed and love it. It's even faster than on demand. Faster hot water incentivizes hand washing. Just think about how many more people would wash their hands at the airport if they didn't have to wait 2 minutes (or forever) to get hot water.

I wash my hands with the cool water that initially comes out?

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#38

Post by Swizec »

teruakohatu wrote: post #30
Swizec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hometown has a power plant in city center. During winter it uses the entire downtown area as a heat sink. It's great. Power plant gets cooling for its hot water, city residents get cheap heating for their homes. Best part is you don't even care about heat loss because you're trying to get rid of all that heat anyway. This scheme has been inplace since the 60's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana_Power_Station…

Given how much health problems are caused by coal power plants, not sure it is that great to live near one. But if you have to have coal, it makes good sense to harvest the energy rather than wastefully pumping the steam into cooling towers.

I mean it’s already there and has been for 60 years. I’m sure its polution pales in comparison to the 200,000+ cars driving in the area daily.

Back when the coal power plant was built it was pretty normal to live near coal burning things.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#39

Post by riedel »

konschubert wrote: post #15
pavon wrote: post #8

As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

As a German living in a city with mandatory district heating... the end result is to be that people seem pay more for heating than they would with a decentralised system. I think that's mostly due to the high upkeep costs of the system, though, the transmission loss is quite manageable, I think. Of course there are arguments to be made that when accounting for the cost of installing a heating system, and the space it…

I think from what I heard the problem with district heating in Germany is quite complex and as said probably not one of energy efficiency. It very much is as I understand a problem for a non-functioning market and problems with centralised planning. Often people e.g. need to subscribe to a higher energy base amount than they need. As there is only one player in the market and consumption is mandatory, there is few incentives to drive down cost structures and scale better with demand.

Re: Large-scale ‘sand battery’ goes online in Finland

#40

Post by com2kid »

konschubert wrote: post #15
pavon wrote: post #8

As an American it completely breaks my expectations that district heating not only works can be more efficient that decentralized heating. The amount of heat lost just moving water from the water heater on one side of the house to the shower on the other is ridiculously high in houses here. The idea that you can insulate well enough to efficiently move heat across a city is amazing to me.

As a German living in a city with mandatory district heating... the end result is to be that people seem pay more for heating than they would with a decentralised system. I think that's mostly due to the high upkeep costs of the system, though, the transmission loss is quite manageable, I think. Of course there are arguments to be made that when accounting for the cost of installing a heating system, and the space it…

> As a German living in a city with mandatory district heating... the end result is to be that people seem pay more for heating than they would with a decentralised system.

So, in America, it is very common for hot water tanks to suddenly fail, leaking water everywhere and causing massive amounts of property damage and even creating health hazards through mold.

In a not-insane world, all hot water tanks would come with moisture meters (you can buy them at the hardware store, $20 maybe) that would alert when the tank started to fail. But no, instead, American's are just accustom to the idea that about every 10-15 years, they will have to fix some large amount of water damage.

The condo complex I used to live in had a huge line item for water damage very year, insurance companies charge a large deductible because they know the damage is going to happen. Recently the condo association has taken to enforcing manual inspections of hot water heaters and requires they be replaced after 10 years, due to the large number of insurance claims that were being made.

(I did suggest they just enforce the use of moisture detectors...)

Oh and in condos, the hot water tanks are supposed to be hooked up to a drain so this flooding isn't an issue. But, well, apparently most of them were not hooked up properly. :/

FWIW I've seen this same issue in multiple places I've lived, apartment complexes have issues with hot water tanks going out all the time.

So anyway, my point is, Americans are really bad at moving hot water around.

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