Ben Brown, CEO of Renew Home, argues that residential HVAC and hot water heating systems are America's largest existing thermal storage infrastructure.
Insight
Brown: Individual AI adoption equals hundreds of millions of new HVACs
“Like if you think about the idea that maybe as each individual having kind of an AI co-pilot, that's the equivalent of like having hundreds of millions of new HVAC systems all of a sudden being put onto the grid.”
Assertion Supported
Brown: VPPs cost 60% of natural gas peakers or less
“We believe that a VPP similar capacity resource would be 60% of the cost of a natural gas peaker investment. And honestly, that's probably outdated because now we know that natural building natural gas peakers are even more expensive.”
Assertion Partly supported
Brown: VPPs cost 40% of utility-scale battery installations
“And it would be, and the VPP would also be 40% of the cost of a utility scale battery investment.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brown: Nearly 75% of new Nest thermostat owners opt into energy shifting
“And so we have actually seen both opt-in and engagement that we're getting nearly 75% of all new Nest thermostat customers that install a device are opting into energy shifting.”
Insight
Brown: Large VPPs remain predictably stable even with individual customer control
“When you give individuals control, large, long system, and you have hundreds of thousands of customers or a million customers, you know, stochastically we can predict, you know, how these things will perform in aggregate. And so actually having control the ent…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Brown: Locational grid strain will favor VPPs over central power plants
“There is going to continue to be, you know, more and more of a challenge that our system tries to struggle to grow to meet that demand, not just on the aggregate basis, But really on the distribution and locational basis, and I think that's also what's very un…”