A stab at house design

[jakobnev]

I was thinking, since so much power use at home involves heating or cooling, why not just store your energy as heat?

A house could look something like this:


The grey line is a segmented motor controlled mirror that concentrates sunlight at the tower to the right.

The roof slopes away so that the sun doesn't shine on any part of the house during the day.

Heat is stored in the blue thing(no it's not the pool), and used directly for heating water, cooking, heating the house etc. (an absorptive cooler let's it be used for refrigeration too)

Generating your now much diminished electricity needs shouldn't be a problem.

[Erc1727]

great design i would pay big $$$ for u to design me a house!! post 7 outta 10 almost pm

[Piwoslaw]

Looks like a heat accumulator, which comes in many sizes (from a few hundred to tens of thousands of liters) and flavors (water, phase change materials).
Instead of heating the "pool" directly with mirrors, I think it may be better to superinsulate the tank and use solar collectors. Not as simple, but probably more efficient in the long run.

Have you been over to EcoRenovator?

[user removed]

South facing mountain side with a significant spring fed creek that never runs dry.
Water power for electricity, fresh water, and solar heat collection. I think you will find that these locations are being grabbed up fairly rapidly.

regards
Mech

[jakobnev]

Well the idea was to use molten salt as heat storage, just as in new power plants that generate electricity around the clock. That way heat can be stored in a high temperature high quality fashion, that is capable of driving absorptive heat pumps for heating and cooling and for power generation.

A key point is to not convert energy to electricity unless you really need electricity, for example: water heaters, stoves, dish washers and washing machines all need heat. And it would be wasteful to convert energy into electricity just to drive a ceramic heating element in any of them.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by jakobnev

Well the idea was to use molten salt as heat storage, just as in new power plants that generate electricity around the clock.

But it takes considerable energy to keep that molten salt at the elevated temperature.

We actually use molten salt at work as a cooling medium.

[jakobnev]

Originally Posted by euromodder

But it takes considerable energy to keep that molten salt at the elevated temperature.

Are you suggesting that it is difficult to insulate a large high temperature tank, or that molten salt somehow violates the law of conservation of energy?

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by jakobnev

Are you suggesting that it is difficult to insulate a large high temperature tank, or that molten salt somehow violates the law of conservation of energy?

No. I only know that we have to put in steam to keep the salt molten.
In the real world, energy tends not to conserve itself, but to go awaste when given half a chance

The tank is vented with nitrogen, which also takes away some of the heat.
If you were to use a closed / pressurized system, that's another source of losses eliminated - but this likely introduces other factors like increased periodic testing.

[Piwoslaw]

The higher the temperature, the greater the loss of heat. Keeping it down will allow you to use less insulation, or to have greater efficiency with what insulation you already have. Phase change materials allow more energy storage for a given volume, but there are materials which change phases at lower temperatures than salt, for example paraffin/wax can melt at ~60°-80°C.

[n7mog]

Instead of all the extra engineering, look @ earth-sheltered homes (just Google). 6+ feet of soil on top and most of the circumference will maintain the soil's average temperature of 50-55 degrees F inside the home. No freezing pipes in the winter; heating from 55 degrees to your comfort level in the winter instead of from 30 or below; cooling in the summer is not a great requirement. Very interesting plans out there that means the home is lit well and airy not the expected dark and damp. Just my $.02. You original picture depicted a hillside construction...ideal! No real maintenance, either!
Bill