Comment on solar PV → heat pump → water heater; direct, no A/C or intermediate components. Practical? Feasible?
cron@feddit.org 2 months ago
I think the cost of all the additional wiring and components would outweight the benefits.
What if the sun isn’t shining? You would need a heat pump that can use AC and DC. What if the sun is shining, and the water is hot enough? Your PV would need DC cabling and a converter to AC to send power to the grid. And all these components would need some switches etc.
It’s just easier to have all your home run on AC.
Shit… sounds about right.
Although the /water is hot enough/ scenario could be addressed mechanically: bigger water tank, lower heating element raised and the heat pump heating the bottom exclusively where it could /always/ add heat because it would never be hot enough at the bottom.
ulterno@lemmy.kde.social 2 months ago
Nice point.
If all appliances had a DC mode, or even an AC+DC mode ^[smells of inefficiency, but I didn’t do the maths] by default, this would be something worth working up for.
But if you are doing it just for a single appliance, guess it’s better to just connect the Solar power output to your AC grid, the way others do.