One thing that I think could be interesting with air conditioning and load balancing is using the air in homes and buildings to shift peaks and make more efficient use of base load power where available. If there’s a bunch of solar power in the early afternoon or wind or nuclear in the middle of the night, it could make sense to cool buildings down further than normal, say instead of just 78 F you cool when there’s excess energy down to 68 or 70 F. Then there’s less need to run those air conditioners when there’s lots of other demand, especially if you insulate well. The nighttime cooling even has the added bonuses of the refrigeration cycle being more efficient over a smaller temperature gradient and many people preferring cooler sleeping temperatures.
Maybe instead of cooling the air directly it would make sense to cool down some well isolated material and later just ventilate air over it to archive a similar effect but time shifted?
One thing that I think could be interesting with air conditioning and load balancing is using the air in homes and buildings to shift peaks and make more efficient use of base load power where available. If there’s a bunch of solar power in the early afternoon or wind or nuclear in the middle of the night, it could make sense to cool buildings down further than normal, say instead of just 78 F you cool when there’s excess energy down to 68 or 70 F. Then there’s less need to run those air conditioners when there’s lots of other demand, especially if you insulate well. The nighttime cooling even has the added bonuses of the refrigeration cycle being more efficient over a smaller temperature gradient and many people preferring cooler sleeping temperatures.
Maybe instead of cooling the air directly it would make sense to cool down some well isolated material and later just ventilate air over it to archive a similar effect but time shifted?
Yep, sort of like banking coldness If there’s enough unused solar energy, we might even be able to freeze water, etc