An article in today’s New York Times titled “Energy-Storage Plans Gain Ground in California” highlights thermal energy storage company Ice Energy’s 16 contracts with Southern California Edison totaling 25.6 megawatts — enough to power 11,000 homes — using the simplest of solutions, ice.
Water is frozen into ice to replace the cooling power of AC units during peaks times. The ice freezes at night when demand is low. During the day, the units use the ice, rather than the AC unit’s compressor, to cool the hot refrigerant, cutting cooling costs substantially.
“We’re very excited you’re seeing storage as a real part of a solution,” said Ice Energy CEO Michael Hopkins in the article. He added that business owners save by buying their electricity at off-peak prices, and SCE avoids the need for seven or eight kilowatts of electricity per unit during peak periods.
Read the full article:
Energy-Storage Plans Gain Ground in California
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