Cutting 100% oil consumption in a New York home using Sunamp thermal battery with solar PV

Introduction

NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research & Development Authority ) program called NEXTGEN Building Innovation has a goal to help New York State achieve a carbon neutral economy, with at least an 85% reduction of greenhouse gases (from a 1990 baseline) by 2050.

NYSERDA’s NextGen Buildings program seeks to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative solutions that enable electrification and decarbonization of the building stock in NYS. By supporting building innovations, the program enable buildings to be cleaner, more energy efficient, load flexible, and resilient.

Under this program, Sunamp is installing thermal batteries in 8 different sites coupled with a variety of existing and new systems to provide domestic hot water and heating in a more efficient and clean way.

The site is a single house occupied by 4 people in Farmingville, NY. The existing system was an oil fired boiler supplying domestic hot water. The project goal was to cut oil consumption by using the energy produced by a PV system already installed in the house to produce domestic hot water.

The power consumption during thermal battery charging events occurred midday on both weekdays and weekends. This demand coincided with peak solar production, showing that the thermal battery was effective at shifting the peak hot water heating load to maximize the use of power produced by solar generation.

This result demonstrates that the thermal battery was an effective water heating solution when powered by solar PV in an electrification retrofit. The thermal battery served well as a system element supporting use of a renewable energy source.

Conclusion:

• Oil consumption cut in 100% for DHW production.

• The thermal battery effectively utilized solar PV as its primary power source, with peak power demand shifted to coincide with peak solar production, instead of the peak hot water heating demand.

• The thermal battery successfully maintained hot water temperatures.

• The project highlights the potential of Sunamp’s PCM thermal batteries in supporting building electrification, renewable energy integration, and emission reduction goals.

• Previous oil-fired water heating system required tank fills of an average of 200 gallons of residential fuel oil per year. GHG emission would have been around 0.67 tons CO2e/year which is just over twice the 0.35 ton CO2e/year emissions if the battery was grid powered.