Our client was able to create an income stream for their company at the same time as creating value for their customers by installing wireless control equipment into electric thermal storage heating units. Using firmware and hardware designed by BCA they were able to create a more stable and flexible electric grid, reduce customers’ bills by 15%, and generate profits for their company.

Context

Electric thermal storage heating systems use electricity to heat insulated bricks which distribute the heat by blowing a fan across the bricks. The client needed special purpose firmware and hardware to control the heating systems, allowing them to run autonomously or based on a schedule that saves money. A schedule can be set so that the bricks are hot enough to heat without wasting energy or money. The heaters can also function as thermal batteries allowing to store more electricity when utility prices are low or conversely selling electricity back to the grid at peak demand. This is done by choosing which thermal heating systems can be broken out of their schedule to use more or less electricity, but this information has to make its way from the grid to our special purpose hardware at each home where the heating systems are used. Our devices and firmware pass information about how electricity use has changed to the electric utility.

Solution

In collaboration with the client, we implemented a Linux server system that kept track of the electrical usage of the heating systems at each house and passed that information up to the grid while passing requests from the grid down to each heating system to use less or more electricity than planned. Each household that was part of the system had special purpose hardware that would communicate up to the server and down to each heating system in the household. Each heating unit within the house also had special purpose hardware that would communicate up to the household gateway and down to the underlying heating system. All hardware installed complied with UL standards for heating equipment and received ETL marks.