I wrote a short paper for the recent International Passivhaus conference about heating Passivhaus buildings using electricity preferentially when there is an abundance of wind. As grid electricity decarbonises matching variable supply from renewables with demand will become increasingly useful. In Scotland the main renewable power source in winter is currently (and likely to continue to be) wind power, so it made sense to match the heating just to that. It’s a short study (just two pages) that I’m hoping to extend in the future. You can read it here.
There was also a poster that went with it. You can see that here.
Would it not be possible to use your electric car battery to good effect in levelling out the temperature range
Hi Pat,
Yes, there’s quite a bit of talk about doing that sort of thing, “vehicle to grid”, too. I suspect in a high-renewables future we’ll want as many load shifting and storage options as we can, especially if they are things that we need anyway (like cars and transport) that can also be put to use as grid buffering.
Some of the periods would have taken quite a drain on a typical EV battery (10 kWh in less than 24 hours for example). So I suspect a typical user of a typical EV wouldn’t be able to ride out as much of the winter that way as by using the house as a heat battery. But maybe a combination of thermal storage in the house, electrical storage in an EV and thermal storage in a hot water tank is the way it might go. Exciting times!
I’d happily allow at least 10kwh of my 40kwh to be used for buffering, is that all it would take?
How were you thinking of extending the study?
Those are the sort of numbers you’d expect in a Passivhaus, yes. Not sure about extending the study, testing it for real on my own house when I’ve completed the EnerPHit might be the next logical step!