Batteries aren't the only way to store energy. Here's another.

While the effect of residents is small, the usage of other sectors is, ultimately, in service of residents. People raise cattle in response to or anticipation of demand. Those cattle use more water than if we raised chickens or wheat for seitan. I consider it unlikely that a top down campaign to ration beef, in service of water usage, would succeed without a change in residential culture. I am more apt to agree with Hank Green [0] that success in major social restructuring requires involvement at the individual level, too, because this encourages secondary behaviors that reinforce the restructuring. People who are voluntarily quitting hamburgers and steaks are more apt to write to their representatives or donate to NGOs that do in support of this issue, initially and to check in later on that promises are kept. [0] [LINK] As another example, Alec, who publishes youtube videos as _Technology Connections_, recently published a video about using his house as a thermal battery [1] so he can offset his energy use to night time, rather than running his AC at peak hours. He suggests that utilities involve residents to widen this strategy, in favor of brownouts or other centralized tools for shedding load in extreme circumstances. A policy solution that did not burden individuals with brownouts, ex by overprovisioning generation, would fall back on their shoulders in the form of higher utility rates. I allege the same would be the case for adverse climate change or overallocated wate

Technology Connections has an interesting video about pre-cooling: [VIDEO] The author also made a good point that despite wind and solar being intermittent, they are actually fairly predictable a or less day in advance (thanks to weather forecasts).

Yes, I think it is a missed opportunity. Hopefully, we are slowly getting there. We have smart meters, smart thermostats, smart everything, all these devices should be able to negotiate for the best time to run. The big red display can be a thing, but I don't want to micromanage my power consumption when it can be done automatically. We already have boilers that turn off during peak hours, but you can also have your thermostats take the cost of electricity into account, there is a video by Technology Connections on that ( [VIDEO] ). You should also have a "run when it is cheap" button on your appliances, most already have a delayed start feature, we can be a little smarter. Electric cars are even better because not only you can schedule charging but they are also batteries. We already have the technology to do all that, at most, all we need is a standardization effort. Power line communication seems like a good fit. It is already used in smart meters to automate readings, and this way, any device that is plugged in knows how much it costs and can adjust, including the big red display if you want one.

Ecobee has eco+ which has "Community Energy Savings" [0]. It was just way too intrusive. It seemed to be a reactive system vs proactive. Technology Connections goes into this more [1], but I believe they should be providing a system that proactively cools when there is less demand _prior_ to an expected increase in demand. Effectively using your house as a "battery". When I had it enabled, I was _always_ too hot (in the summer) during peak hours. Sorry, not sorry: I'm not willing to sacrifice my comfort for the ~$10/mo incentive. ___ [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]

Technology Connections does a similar thing, over-cooling his house at night as a thermal battery. Video: [VIDEO] Reddit discussion: [LINK] He estimates it at 16 KWh of storage. Same ballpark as a Powerwall, right?

That really isn't the same product, as I understand this is an HRV combined with heat pump system where they are software integrated to PID controls that optimize the level of fresh air and weather aware energy utilization, with a system like this and a startup I'm sure optimizations like this [VIDEO] should be possible - this is like Dropbox, can't expect people to roll their own - and you need a fully integrated system to really make this work well without comfort, even simpler if cooling/heating is more efficient via bringing in fresh air this system could choose to do that vs running the heat pump at all!