Aquanta Networked Water Heater Controller

[oil pan 4]

After the Texas power grid near collapse it tells us precisely what we need. Don't need no fancy networked gold plated junk. Just a simple under frequency relays would work.
When the power grid frequency drops below say 59.8 pr 59.7Hz your electric hot water heater, hvac electric car charging rig is kicked off line. Until the power grid frequency is restored.

Because the Texas power grid dropped below 59.4Hz that started timers on hard wired safety disconnectors. You have 9 minutes to get the frequency back above 59.4Hz, oh and if you drop below 59.3 it's instant or almost instant. Then power plants start kicking off line, like all of them. And you're in a "black start" condition, which has never happened in the US. We have had large swaths of interconnect go down, but that was the idea. Losing 1/3 of your interconnect and turning the power back on is easy, nothing compared to a black start.

[freebeard]

Black Start sounds like what happens after the coming micro-nova, when the material shed by the Sun causes three days of darkness.

My understanding is that Texas represents a third, minor, segment of the national grid.

One advantage that Texas has is that Tesla/SpaceX is consolidating there. IDK for sure, but the Tesla grid storage probably uses Software Defined Power. This means that the DC power in their battery storage is used to fortify the phasing not the volume of power delivered.

[oil pan 4]

3 days of darkness people will loose their minds. Straight up purge.

I think there are 8 or 9 grid interconnect in the US, Canada and Alaska. Florida, Texas and Alaska have their own power grids.

[freebeard]

On the one end of the scale you have the emerging micro-grids. On the other, Bucky Fuller's predicted intertie across the Bering Strait.

Let's hope it's just a massive ejection with half the planet obliterated. If there's a secondary axis rotation the Pacific comes sloshing over the Rocky Mountains.

[oil pan 4]

What ever happened last time, it didn't get this part of new mexico.

[freebeard]

That is apparently why Suspicious 0bservers broadcasts from the New Valley of the Sun there.

[rmay635703]

This change saves the grid operator money, does nothing for you
Water heaters “store” grid power for use later

My guess is your water heater is both big and weak at the same time.

AKA It can eventually get your water hot but has too low of BTUs to maintain a temperature during use

Very possible it might even be off when you are using it.

I would insulate it if you can, it doesn’t save a lot of power but on electricity with it turning on and off randomly it might make things more pleasant and electricity is very expensive so even a small savings is several dollars.
If you can turn it up a few degrees (and insulate) you might have a more pleasant shower.

If you want to “save money” you need a power assisted shower head to reduce water use, insulate the tank better (especially the head), increase temp to make up for the reduction of water through your shower, if your shower takes a long time to get warm insulate pipes and add a recirc valve or inline heater and there are cellular control devices that can keep your water heater completely off during times you never use it, just make sure those times aren’t when the utility wants it on.

In areas that need AC the most interesting are heat pumps that heat water and give you ac

Unfortunate we don’t try to recover the heat from your “waste” water as well which could cut your bill in half

[Piotrsko]

I think the controller thermostat is either set wrong or the tank is plumbed backwards. You should be pulling hot water off the top of the tank and that causes the top element to fire first then as it cools down the bottom the lower element should go on. Mine is wired funny since I cant run 2 elements at the same time, but I haven't run out of hot water even after dishes and 2 showers.

[redpoint5]

Didn't notice the new posts here until now. This thread is almost 3 years old. We've been in a house for almost 2 years. Our furnace, water, range, fireplaces, BBQ and dryer are all NG. With the power outage we lost nothing, and wiring up a cheapo $250 genset into the breaker panel was simple and gave us everything we wanted.


Good explanation oil pan. I don't follow news so I didn't really know what happened in Texas.

[oil pan 4]

Yeah they are weak.
I rewired mine to run both elements at the same time, two 30 amp circuits running 5.5kw each. Some times I need a lot of hot water.
For this winter I would like to do coal furnace fired hot water and cloths drying.