Caldera warmstone vs batteries?

waqasahmed

So this company says it's a boiler replacement and they say that their technology is worth about 7 Tesla Powerwalls, for 12K instead of 70K which is what Tesla would charge

How true is this in reality? Would I be better off just having regular batteries? (Not necessarily Tesla) 

Solarchaser

They say 7 tesla powerwalls because it has the ability to store 100kwh... of heat.
Same question as yesterday with the mixergy. 

Mixergy
Sunamp
Tepeo
Caldera 

They are all ways of storing hot water.
They will all be cheaper than storing the equivalent in batteries.

2nd_time_buyer

All energy eventually ends up as heat. 

As such, heat is generally the least useful form of energy as it can't be used for anything else other than heating.

If you want heat, a heat pump is much more efficient. An air-to-air heat pump is a good replacement for an electric radiator and will use a 1/4 of the energy.

They are now VAT free since the mini budget. 

michaels

Current gas vs electricity prices, you can get heap rate leccy for the same or cheaper than gas - eg Octopus go 7.5p vs 7.4 for gas.  Not sure how relative efficiencies of heat store electric vs on demand gas though?

arty688

I think its comparing apples with oranges , unless of course you were about to order 7 Powerwalls to just to power heaters.

Reed_Richards

I looked at the Caldera Warmstone; its huge!  So huge, in fact, that it has to be delivered by crane.  It's basically a gigantic night storage heater but the stored heat is used to heat water rather than air.  Nevertheless, the economics are exactly the same as for a night storage heater.  

Meatballs

Limited use in summer

waqasahmed

Solarchaser said:

They say 7 tesla powerwalls because it has the ability to store 100kwh... of heat.
Same question as yesterday with the mixergy. 

Mixergy
Sunamp
Tepeo
Caldera 

They are all ways of storing hot water.
They will all be cheaper than storing the equivalent in batteries.

Ahhh. I thought it could do a bit more than Mixergi. These things are considerably pricier than Mixergi unfortunately 

waqasahmed

arty688 said:

I think its comparing apples with oranges , unless of course you were about to order 7 Powerwalls to just to power heaters.

Tbh I don't even have the house yet. Essentially looking for the best ROI and get bills right down 

waqasahmed

michaels said:

Current gas vs electricity prices, you can get heap rate leccy for the same or cheaper than gas - eg Octopus go 7.5p vs 7.4 for gas.  Not sure how relative efficiencies of heat store electric vs on demand gas though?

This is a fair point. I guess I might be better off using solar PV + mixergi + batteries? Apparently you can save money from your gas bill with mixergi too

Actually scratch that, they say 20% reduction in gas use which isn't the same thing. 
Damn. The economics still don't work out

michaels

If you could replace all your gas use with electricity at the same price per unit then it would make sense - no boiler to install/maintain, no standing charge etc.

However this only seems possible if the 'low rate' for electricity is similar to the gas rate and you can in some way store enough heat to cover a 24 hour period during the electricity low rate period.

There is no certainty that the former will hold true, gas prices may fall back and low rate electricity tariffs may be withdrawn.

And that is before any of these energy storage systems come into play with their unknown efficiencies, flow temp questions etc.

Edit:  Our peak winter days we might use 170kwh of power (gas plus electric) - trying to 'download' all this power as electricity in an Octopus Go 4 hour window implies about 200 Amps!!