Former Tesla Exec Is Building the Home Heat Pump Musk Promised
notateslaapp.com> For years, Elon Musk teased the idea of a Tesla-made home heat pump and smart HVAC systems that would completely change how we heat and cool our houses
... In what way would this be different from any other heat pump? The article is rather unclear. Like, pretty much every home built here today has a heat pump.
The advance would come from building systems that can scavenge waste heat from multiple sources instead of just exchanging with outside air.
The model Y introduced the "octovalve" which regulates flow in 13 different configurations to bring the highest quality heat to the cars heat pump.
In a house this might be something like extracting heat from grey water, or even cold tap water, ports for a solar heated loop, fresh air exchange etc.
System integration enabling efficient use of heat transfer is the opportunity
The Tesla heat pump also introduced high volume low cost manufacturing processes like semisolid aluminum casting and friction stir welding. That promise to lower costs.
Another thing that is potentially achievable with a low cost integrated approach is staged heat pumps for hot water tanks.
The possibilities are endless really, at the limit these ideas lead to integrated neighborhood scale heat networks tied to rooftop solar that can replicate district heating strategies.
Lots to be done.
… I mean, again, that all pretty much exists (except maybe the thermal solar stuff, but PV ate thermal solar’s lunch about 20 years ago). Any new home built here at this point will generally have a heat pump with MHRV, which heats the hot water.
Generally the major cost in retrofitting such a thing isn’t the unit; it’s the modifications to the home to support it.
All the words I don't know are so interesting! It's difficult to banish them. I think of interest will be the log of the journey down to the one word, rather than the one word that remains