Mixergy Hot Water Tank | Fully Charged
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 มิ.ย. 2024
- I've had a new water tank fitted. His old one was knackered (it was 21 years old)
The new Mixergy tank is very different as you will see.
Thermal stratification. Oooh. Nice.
For more info: mixergy.co.uk/
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Didn't think a presentation on smart water heating tanks could be this intriguing.
OmniSzron The whole idea of a national network of hot water heaters working together is such an interesting concept.
I've a 300L tank heated with 2 immersion heaters running off the solar PV on my house. Depending on available power I switch on one or put both in series to heat the tank. It has 50mm of high performance insulation on the tank and is boxed in and sealed up with another 50mm of plywood/kingspan. Once it gets up to temperature it stays hot for several days which is great as I'm off grid!
It makes total sense using hot water for energy storage, but I never thought it would be practical since it would mean fluctuating water temp. I'm very happy to have been proven wrong. Very cool tech and another excellent video!
Cheers Jeremy! Exactly the thinking we have - storing energy by varying temperature is problematic from the point of view of heat-losses, accelerated scaling and scalding so we prefer to do things this way :)
I do not see this thing feasible with all those internal pumps. Will break soon, and is more expensive. If you want to heat only what you use just use instant heater. This is too a little expensive since it needs a more powerful heater. And for the second part, storage, when is energy in excess, yes is a good idea, and is used already where the grid and devices are getting smarter. So if this part of a test, do a second one, with a regular tank used for storage when is cheap energy or excess, and instant heating for the rest of the time when there is no hot water stored, and see which one is better considering the overall price of energy, and system plus maintenance.
i didnt understand the video that much
So It looks like all those years playing a domestic service robot may of rubbed off a wee bit on Rob judging by quite how neatly folded his towels are
No more arguments about leaving the emersion heater on! Excellent!
Pete Armstrong getting interviewed by Kryten - it's almost too good to be true. Thanks guys, this made my year!
One thing you forgot is to insulate the warmwaterpipeing from the watertank these things heat up quite alot and if you do your hot water externally via a gas or oil heater it can save you quite a bit.
Here in germany it is even required by law that you insulate these pipes with insulation that is roughly at least as thick as the diameter of the pipe itself to prevent heat losses and save energy.
You are not punished for not having it on, but it is a waste of energy and you can easily do it yourself and offset the cost of the insulation realtively fast.
100% agree. In the UK my 1997 house has no pipe insulation and the pipes run under the upstairs floor from the boiler on the ground floor. Unfortunately, the floors are chipboard (particle board) that are extremely difficult to take up - they just break up. To make it worse I have laid engineering floor over the chipboard (but that is clipped together and just floating). It would have cost very little to have insulated the pipes when the house was constructed. Shows how backward in the UK building industry. I would just love one of your German zero energy Hus houses.
can't believe anyone thumbs downing new tech? Brilliant insights big thanks to fullycharged...
You've got to love the wave of inventiveness coming to us these days and the shift in how we use, store, create and manage energy for peak performance and reliability is a game changer for this world. Thanks again Robert and team for bringing us this news. It's another piece of kit to add to our things to consider when building our homes in the future.
You are the person that should be used for tests, you share the knowledge and inform the world
Here is my rude comment. You asked and I am a giving person. (A well hidden rude comment) I agree with Robbie, putting this in the home of a TH-camr makes loads of $ense! I hope you will do a follow-up in the future.
how does a consumer take advantage of half hour grid pricing? It makes so much sense....great invention.
I thought that’s how old-school hot water tanks worked, there were 2 elements coming from the top, a short one and a long one, and a switch “Sink/Bath” which switched between them. So you could heat a small or large amount of water. This seemed to fall out of fashion for “thermal stores” which heat the whole bulk of the tank. Guess it’s going back to the old way, albeit more hi-tech!
Awesome stuff!! Once you scale up that concept, and combine that with a national fleet of EVs, that should surely absorb and buffer a vast renewables generation network.
So much so that you can keep on adding more wind and solar as if there was no tomorrow! It's awesome for sure!
another fantastic video from Robert, wish when i brought my new home it was supplied with a tank like that.
have a word with Robert you may get on same scheme he is on
That system is designed to be retrofitted to existing homes. Stratification is well known, they’ve just added smart controls to it.
I admire your transparency Rob! Liked the video too. My 2000 litre tank works on the same principle really and helps me heat the house from solar thermal, particularly on chilly evenings in spring and autumn.
Get those shiny copper pipes insulated.
Acharacle & Achiltibuie absolutely those electron guzzling Tesla types are all about new tech but when it comes to home diy nothin’
Yeah, they should be wrapped in squishy black foam!
Thus spake the energy-efficiency gestapo.
Excellent idea. Anything moving towards energy storage is a good thing!!
The UK is really leading the way to showing how energy conservation needs to be done. Good stuff!!
Not really no.
Wonderful heater. Very happy that he was able to buy one.
The Graphene heaters will be even more amazing. They will convert electricity to heat more efficiently.
Future is great !
Resistive heaters are by definition 100% efficient. Graphene would only improve thermal conductivity, which frankly won't be revolutionary
You didn’t factor in 2020...future is shite 😇🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Fascinating. I can see the benefits in large users with predictable useage. Hotels maybe..
Larger buildings have system on a whole other scale and usually keeps relatively small amounts of hot water stored if any and at lower temps only to regularly and briefly get it real hot to kill of any bacteria in the system. They usually also control the production to have more HW on hand during the morning and around dinner time when most ppl shower.
In some sports arenas with electronically controlled showers you let the showers run during the bacteria killing cycle. This is done at night.
This might be good for homes where you normally have had simpler systems and cant fit a more effective heating solution, using direct electricity to heat thing is quite wasteful.
We needed a new boiler three years ago and fitted an unvented mains pressure hot water tank, that is really really well lagged. We also had PV panels fitted with a device which detects excess solar generation and diverts that to an immersion heater.
Smart as your system is with the stratification techniques, How about using your grid price sensing tech and the PV diverter to make a black box that can be retrofitted to existing systems. That would be simple electrical fit rather than a full plumbing job.
You can chain tankless heaters for this very problem.
Nice Robert! I like the way you bring forward the accumulative benefits ❤️🖤💚
Hello Fully Charged. I just want to say I love what you guys do with this program. I love hearing about new upcoming technologies about green energy and EV's. It has gotta me excited about the future and makes me envious that I am not currently living in an area that isn't more Pro EV and into renewables. The ideas and concepts presented on these shows has gotta me excited about engineering and my life long dream of being an inventor or innovator. As soon as I can I will be a patron of your show and support what you do. It has given me new ideas and excitement for innovation. I would one day love to come visit you and your team to thank you personally for going out there and showing me what i couldn't even imagine possible.
I'm glad you pointed out that your thermostat is technically upside down. Saved me doing it.
We are lucky here in Australia. I installed an evacuated tube solar hot water heater 3 years ago. We have used zero electricity for water heating since. Best investment ever. At any one time we have a 300L tank of 90+ degree Celsius water available. It boils in summer by 10am!
This is excellent technology! Thanks for covering this.
Fantastic idea! I dream about having my house energy neutral and driving an EV on the energy I gain from ' my house' . Keep up the good work you're doing with the video's. I have never seen and heard so much, normally 'dull', information on renewables done in such an entertaining way ... love it!
Look forward to each new show.
Thank you.
I spent the 1/3 of the video admiring the shelving.
Just done an updated video to this with Pete on my channel, Unfortunately i do not have the same editing skills.
This is fascinating and amazing technology. I hope these guys are rewarded with a large pile of cash for their ingenuity. Doing well while doing good.
Keep going! You are changing the world!
I assume every time you say “solar” you mean photo voltaic panels. Some of us have solar thermal panels on the roof which, on most days, heats the tank for free during daylight hours
PVs are so cheap now it’s better to go electric straight in to hot water tank. No need for glycol, or water systems on roof.
Hadn't thought about this at all but this is genius. I wish them so much success and will definitely be installing it when I become a homeowner.
Thanks LZ - best of luck with getting your home and do keep an eye on us on www.mixergy.co.uk and keep in touch!
Interesting new way of getting hot water. I went about 5 years ago for a carbon fiber heated tank since I hhave PV pannels since 10 years. So I switched more to electric rather than gas commonly used here in Italy. The carbon fiber layer which heats the stainless steel tank is on the outer side of the thank. It gives the advantage of not building up calcium - the typical problem with a traditional coil heating system - although I have a water softener to solve this problem. This carbon fiber heating system claims to be 30% more efficient in energy consumption over the traditional tanks with coils. I am pleased with it and now installed the Tesla PowerWall2 since last june to manage all this even better. I also control the energy flow to the hot water tank with a low cost WiFi plug which I control from my smartphone. It allows setting times (on/off) or manually control the energy to the tank. Fun with all the electric solutions and the technologies to support all this.
Back to the good old days of waiting for the hot water tank to warm up before having a shower/bath. Good job!
Except that the Mixergy tank is far quicker to recover than a conventional tank and more efficient than an instant gas boiler with the opportunity to store clean renewable energy :) (Oh mains pressurised tanks also deliver higher flow rates!)
Very interesting concept. Love this kind of videos.
Interesting as always FC.
The white tank( potable ) is not part of the heating system is is part of the hot water expansion system !
“So are you happy with it ? “
Like he would say no 😂
Nice explanation!
This is very smart. I can't wait for an update in a month or 6 months from now. One thing that amazes me most is that it seems like the electricity provider there is not monopolized(if thats a word) well its not owned by one company like it is in South Africa which is awesome
A great bit of tech, a great bit of innovation from a new company which could hopefully alter how energy is dispersed throughout the national grid. Very nice and exciting
I have two heating elements in my tank. One at the top, which is on a thermostat, should the hot water run out. And one at the bottom, which comes on at night when electricity is cheap.
That's a very practicable arrangement Stuart and one that works well with Economy 7, we just go a step further in having more granularity in terms of heating and a faster recovery of heat for small volumes in the top of the cylinder. So if you want to get more efficient use of Eco 7 along with better control then the Mixergy tank provides a useful alternative!
Pete armstrong Maybe multiple heaters down the tank would be more solid-state than pumps for circulating cold water.
The pump is called a _shunt_ pump. You can have just one 9kW immersion heater at the top of the cylinder. This will only heat the top one third or one quarter, giving a quick heat recovery. To heat the the rest of the cylinder a slow moving shunt pump can gradually move the hot water down the cylinder to whatever volume you want. If you want half full of hot water then you can have it. As the water cools in the top of the cylinder because the pump is moving hot water slowly down the cylinder and cooler water from the bottom to the top, the immersion's thermostats kicks in. So you always have usable hot water at the top of the cylinder ready to draw off.
The cylinder will have, or _maybe_ should have, baffles down the cylinder to maintain stratification - keeping hot water in stratified levels down the length of the cylinder. Temperature sensors would need to be at points down the side of the cylinder.
Having a low wattage shunt pump means only having one electrical immersion heater, meaning less cost - no heavy cables, for multiple immersion heaters, switches, etc. Three immersion heaters can draw a fair amount of electricity,
Because of this episode I have one installed in my new house in New Zealand now. Cheers Robert!
Which company did you purchase it from Thomas? and how has it been going thus far?
@@stefanzahariou5028 I imported it myself directly from mixergy.
@@stefanzahariou5028 been working like a dream.
@@thomasevans7792 cheers mate, I'll have to look into doing the same.
Thank you Robert for another amazing story (even though it was just about hot water tanks, lol)!
How has the Mixergy Tank performed in your home Robert? Possible revisit episode?
Fascinating product - at scale this could really help smooth supply and demand. With technology like Tesla's recent "grid scale" batteries in Australia and these water tanks the idea of high/low price spikes in grid prices will be a thing of the past before long!
Too much power? Heat up a bit of extra water in thousands of tanks.
Too little power? Delay heating up water for 5-10 minutes.
A friend of mine told me there's a hotel in London that's connected to the grid - at peak times (end of Coronation Street when all the kettles are turned on) the power companies can make the hotel's air conditioning turn off for a couple of minutes to help reduce demand.
Sounds like a no-brainer if your old tank fails - I wish them every success!
Greg thanks very much for the support, much appreciated :) do feel free to drop us a line through our website www.mixergy.co.uk
Agreed. Much cheaper and simpler than battery storage though we need both.
Love this and glad someone else has expended the effort in designing this ;) - when my Megaflo gives up, which can take about 10-12kWh of solar diversion at the moment depending on incoming water temp etc, I'd be happy to get one of these - price looks competitive too. Always wondered why after a long bout of solar and then a cloudy day the water would suddenly get cold - now I know ;)
Get some lagging on those pipes Robert :p
Robert, will you be doing any kind of follow-up on the tank in regards to how well it worked for you (like did it run out of hot water more than usual or did other unexpected issues pop up - or not), any data regarding cost savings, and etc.? Very interesting episode - I know I didn't really think about my tank as a possible energy storage device.
How fast is it from 0 - 60mph❓
I can't think of a better person to be a part of this trial!
Brilliant Robert , and like me transparent is best ! Still happy to keep up with Patreon contributions as Mark needs his supply of bread and cheese and strong coffee for those long editing nights !
I have a similar system with a solar panel on the roof. It's honestly the best thing I ever bought. After emptying the hot water with 3 showers in the morning we have a tank of piping hot water by 4pm the same day with no use of oil to heat it. Even in the winter it raises the water temperature by a good 30 degrees leaving the oil heating for a few minutes to top up.
Thanks mixenergy !! Great idea and product
Cheers Bryan!
In the U.S. most electric water heaters use thermal stratification, but for a different purpose. They have an upper and lower element and use them independently to keep the top water hot longer. A couple of years back I went to a heat pump water heater, which It's the lowest energy use water heater available here. A side benefit is that it air conditions my garage by taking heat out of my garage and putting it in water. I use a timer to make best use of the variable rate tariffs and solar, but a timer is not smart and it would be nice to have that part automated. The water heater has an smartphone app, but strangely there are not options for timing for solar or rates.
Please draw the Henry Hoover face on that Pressure bottle, Another great video
Would be SO keen for one of these!
A standard duel element tank with the bottom element solar powered by 1kw all day with top element connected to grid for backup is very efficient too
Super interesting. This is something I hope will take off. As a owner of lots of solar I would like to store more of the energy like this.
Fabulous idea!
Woah precisely what I was looking for.
That circa 20% drop in capacity overnight demonstrates perfectly the need for pipe lagging.
Vary interesting an informative thank you.
I own a 4.7KW PV system for over 8 years. However over 40 years ago I started installing a conveniently located remote switch for my electric hot water system along with super insulating my hotwater tank.
Having the switch conveniently located in the bathroom. I now only have my hot water tank on for 10 min a day along with just switching it on before I start preparing to shower and turning it off when I am finished.
I believe it was about $15 - $20 USD in parts to add the in line high current switch. However, it will be more if you need to hire an electrician to make the connection obvulisly (luckily I know how to safely do this on my own and have the tools I need).
AnyWay, I like the system fetured in this video a lot. However it will be costly for the home owner once the studdy is up inorder to purchase the equiptment and pay the labor to have it all installed I am sure.
One last thing:
Mr. L. perhaps you should consider super insulating this new tank of your too on it's exterior. My water tank takes days to loose all it's heat due to the extra layers of insulation I began always add in the mid 1970s. And I now place the tank on 2 inches of rigid foam board when I first intall or replace a tank. This too helps if the tank is sitting on a cold floor. This is both the first and easyest step to do inorder to start saving your hot water heating expence actually.
Excellent video! So much common sense
I have what's called a solar iboost fitted to my emersion heater tank, whenever there is excess solar energy it's diverted to the emersion heaters in the cylinder, my cylinder has two emersion heaters in it, one at the bottom and one in the middle, both are connected to the iboost. The iboost diverts the energy from one emersion to the other when required. In the mornings when very little In the house is being used the cylinder is heated up via solar and as it's a pretty modern (normal) boiler it stays hot for hours. since it's been fitted our boiler hasn't come on once to heat any water, we have had free hot water from solar. It remains to be seen how it will perform on the shorter winter days but the signals are good so far. I tested it by switching the emersion off to allow the water in the cylinder to cool, I then turned on my PC, three TVs plus various lights, (the solar was producing 2.8 kwh at this time). I then turned on the emersion, the iboost diverted 1.1 kw to the emersion and heated the water. It will always divert electricity when there is more than 100w free, so it looks promising so far. It takes probably 15 mins to install the system and is well worth it so far.
Thanks read more! we are big fans of solar iboosts - if you connect a solar iboost to our system it stratifies the energy from the top of the tank downwards. This means that you get more service from small surpluses of solar power. Furthermore, you can set different charge points on your schedule so that other appliances like an electric vehicle or a home battery can take the surplus once the tank has reached the level you want.
we have had our iboost a few years now you will not get much hot water in the winter
that's honestly awesome
Our old Yugoslav boiler from ca. 1988 had the same system, and was connected to solar on the roof. The roof part was absolute shit, but the boiler got heated in winter by a gas stove and in summer by the solar. Spring and autumn, you used electric heater that v was in the top of the boiler that heated enough water for four showers. Our modern (10 years old system is similar, but the boiler has much better insulation and the roof part is superb, heating 250 liters in spring and autumn that lasts for few days, usually enough to get through rainy week. winter is again heated by the stove. I bet that in England you cud heat your house directly from the roof solar system. Electric management on the boiler from the video is impressive.
And there I was thinking when new video was coming out :)
When travelling to UK I was surprised solar water heating systems arent really used there. They are more efficient than panels producing electricity
Not if you use a heat pump. Heat pump plus PV is very efficient
@@ThomasBomb45 debatable
Amazing episode! Why can't a company like Mixergy cooperate with a home building company to install them in their new homes - not only to promote it but also to get more data? All new homes need hot water - why not push to use these?
Very interesting as always, Robert. Thanks for that! How do you feel does this system weigh up against the Sunamp system?
Would be interested to see how this compares with one of the SunAmp Heat Batteries that Fully Charged looked at a year or so ago. Either way I think the idea of storing excess renewable energy as heat is going to be the way forward as its so much cheaper than storing as electricity. Added to which heat is the biggest use of energy in modern homes.
I would hope this is in the price range of a normal water heater replacement, SunAmps start at £1,200 without vat or install, and if you have Solar you want a normal tank and dump as much heat as possible when you have the free energy, you may not have the sun tomorrow.
What a nifty idea!
5:26 This is the first time I've seen a laptop without an apple logo on it on a youtube video. Congratulations!
Thanks Dudley ;) I'm very happy with my Dell XPS haha!
Hot water tanks talking to each other! Kryten heaven....
Living in Florida, I can think of one instance when you'd want to full charge your hot water tank: when a hurricane is approaching. Having been through a couple of them and being without power (no more than a day, fortunately), it would be nice to have that available.
Really interesting video!
looks good, how does this differ from my standard immersion tho? on all the ones ive seen the element screws in on the top of the tank, so by definition must heat top down??
Kryten's laundry room - where science happens!
We've had tanks with dual electric elements for years with say a 3KW at the bottom and a 2KW at the top. Time clock controlled so during the day you only heated the top first thing in the morning you heated the water from the bottom.
Robert Llewellyn you're so bloody charming, love all of your videos!!
US water heaters/tanks have two elements. Like this innovative tank the cold water comes in the bottom and the hot water is drawn from the top. The top element is for immediate use and bottom one is for full tank heating. The upper area of the tank mush reach the set temperature of the top thermostat before it switches the electricity down to the bottom element which then turns off and on as the bottom thermostat dictates and keeps the entire tank hot until hot water is drawn off the top of the tank. When the top thermostat registers the temperature to be below it's low setting then the electricity is switched back to the top element.
Great idea! How is this connected to your solar panel, power wall and EV production/usage? Is there a good controlsystem for all of it? Can you just add a switch to your current water heater?
That is one crammed closet/utility room. Americans love to do the same thing and design houses with a closet for a utility room. Then cram a boiler, furnace, water softener, water heater, etc in it. The main water line is where you can't access it. Oh and a floor drain sloping the wrong way just to throw in there. Then 10 years down the road when stuff breaks down, they complain about the cost. So what I'm saying is 10 years from now when that tank goes out and you have to rip all the copper out to remove it, better be ready for that bill lol.
I'll wait to see the aggregated long term field test data.
It’s still a resistive element though? I have a heat pump which has a COP of between 2 and 3.6, dependant in the delta t. I’d be interested as to the relative cost and emissions savings verses you system. Obviously the heat pump is more expensive to purchase initially, but my Daikin system does DHW and space heating.
This is very interesting! I'd love to see a video that describes how an average semi detached 3 bed house, gas combi boiler, no solar/battery, would outfit with the kit you show on the channel and an approximate cost. I'd be interested in replacing the south facing side of my roof with solar, PowerWall for storage and replacing the gas boiler with a Mixergy equivalent but I've no idea of the cost so I could approximate the savings I'd get in return.
buaan switching from gas to electric heat is a bad choice unless you have a source of free power. Gas is still the cheapest form of obtaining heat. Even off peak electricity is twice the price, peak rate electricity three or four times the price. If you're going down the solar PV route it may be worth it but return on investment will be long- space heating is by far the biggest energy cost for any UK home, water heating is perhaps 20% of You gas bill maximum.
Nice video
Looks really interesting and efficient...
One thing the video says is that water tanks are conventionally heated from the bottom?
I've seen quite a lot of immersion heaters, yet most of them were fitted to the top of the tank? I always thought that was the norm?
Lots of uninsulated copper pipework in your cupboard being a conduit for escaping heat
Good video. Got to say though a Sunamp heat battery and a combi boiler is probably the way to go if you're putting a new system in.
We'd say it depends on the type of installation! To meet our 2050 carbon objectives we need to migrate from gas and so our view is renewable energy heating tanks will play a big role :)
Not when it's free...
Yeah except that they don't sell the sunamp in the states yet. Hopefully one day they will. Does anyone know how much sunamp's system is going to cost?
In 1990 my studio flat had a tank with 2 heaters, one at the top and the bottom - not a new thing but understand the controls are a lot better.
Thank you so much for those amazing videos, I learn a new (useful) thing every time I watch one of your videos, I would like to see something about Air conditioning system as I know they use a lot of power, can we have something like that in the short future operates on renewable energy alone? thank again :)
Bloody brilliantly
Hi Robert, I know you posted this video some time ago now. But, do you think you could give us an update on how it’s going, is it saving you money, is it reliable, any other benefits or downsides that you hadn’t expected. I personally would like love to hear it, many thanks and much love Thomas
And to think two 20-somethings came up with such an idea... Geniuses!
Great info, so now how on earth do I work out what my tank size should be?
Hello guys! This is a really interesting topic! I really enjoy your videos about energy storage. It would be awesome if your youtube content had subtitles. Even a english transcription would help to get some minor details that sometimes get lost for non native english speakers and would foster your international audiences.
I have a similar heat battery system where the spare solar on the roof is diverted into the water tank instead of being exported to the grid (which I get paid for whether it's exported or not). In the UK this summer we're getting piles of free hot water. Trouble is, it's a cold shower I really need right now ...
I’d gladly pay double the tax rate for you to be part of this great idea for efficient hot water cylinder. Another really interesting video.
Our hot water tank has two heating coils (one near the top as well as the bottom) but is obviously lacking the fancy computers and data-gathering connections found in a Mixergy tank. I'm curious as to how it would compare in terms of efficiency.
Well done Robert, I am surprised you can sleep with that unpainted patch behind the water tank!