Manufacturing Scale-Up for Combined Heating and Hot Water Thermal Battery System

Project Innovation

To enable the large-scale transition to lower emissions solutions, the Recipient has developed a smart controller for a home heating, cooling, and hot water system that has near-zero emissions (including emissions from power generation), pollutes significantly less than competing technology, is affordable to install and operate, and is suitable for new homes and retrofits.

The product at the heart of the system is an appliance -the “Harvest Pod”- developed and built by the Recipient. Incorporating electronic and physical flow controls, the Harvest Pod controls off-the-shelf equipment (heat pump, water tank and air handler) to deliver space conditioning and hot water. Using the tank as a thermal battery, the Pod shifts the majority of a home’s electric load to non-peak times. Users benefit from lower costs and society benefits from reduced GHG emissions and improved flexibility in grid management to allow a greater shift to renewables while mitigating peak loads.