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

A NYSERDA NextGen Buildings Innovation Program.

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.

 

Single house (4 occupants) - Farmingville NY
Single house (4 occupants) – Farmingville NY

Existing System:

Oil-fired boiler with an oil tank to heat domestic hot water

A solar PV system (solar roof) with a SPAN® smart electrical panel

Proposed Solution:

Thermino 300i (80e P58) charged with an internal 2.8 kW electric resistance heater charged by the solar panels.

Existing system vs Proposed solution


 

 

 

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:

The thermal battery effectively utilized solar PV as its primary power source, shifting the peak power demand to coincide with peak solar production rather than the peak hot water heating demand. This cut 100% of oil consumption for domestic hot water and consistently maintained hot water temperatures.

The previous oil-fired water heating system required tank fills of an average of 200 gallons of residential fuel oil annually, resulting in approximately 0.67 tons of CO2e emissions per year. This is more than double the 0.35 tons of CO2e emissions that would be produced if the system were powered by a grid-connected battery.

This project highlights the potential of phase change material thermal batteries in supporting building electrification, renewable energy integration, and emission reduction goals.