What was your experience if so?
I miss how fast our German kettle heated water :-(
I think we're up to 8 states now?
It seems like the site ought to provide more clarity around that, though.
This is an ad for a poor deal and I think some are upvoting before they click. I hope nobody buys it before doing some comparison shopping.
Most people in the US don't know that things like this even exist, so it's novel, new, and interesting.
Our media environment and politics have kept us away from broad understanding of current technology and possibilities. The US also has Stockholm-syndrome levels of subservience to HOAs, too, for example. When it comes to clean energy, regulation is assumed to be impossible to change, as is the grid. (But when it comes to energy for data centers, all regulations can be changed, and boy will the grid undergo changes, all billed back to residential ratepayers...)
It's hard to overstate just how bad the US is when it comes to the random person understanding hot-button Fox news topics like EVs and solar and wind and batteries.
Household wiring actually has 2 separate 120V supply lines, out of phase with each other (This is how you can get 240V outlets (ovens, driers)). The 120V lines connect to only one of these two lines, and which one it connects to is determined by what slot the breaker is plugged into at the breaker box.
otterley•30m ago
"We pass the savings onto you! [Just pay $29/year membership fee!]"
(Seriously, though. 180W? That's not a ton of "help" for a typical refrigerator that pulls anywhere between 300 and 800W.)
(Also, seriously, though. Most apartment owners and condo HOAs won't allow their residents to put these on their balconies.)
kotaKat•26m ago
I know I can't justify spending $3k upfront to only offset $25/month at best. I'd rather just turn off a few lights and stop paying for Netflix.
It seems like a large cost for not a lot of power offset that's also unusable when the power goes out (since you can't run untied from the grid).
itsrobreally•26m ago
SyzygyRhythm•15m ago
These types of devices are fairly popular in Germany, and maybe other places. For someone like me, with very high peak daytime prices, even a small offset would be valuable, but the full price here seems to be $500, which is too much. No reason it couldn't be much cheaper, though.
phil21•3m ago
Call it 1.5kwh for the entire day being optimistic. This would save me (inclusive of taxes, etc.) roughly $.33/day. Call it $10/mo.
34mo so payback isn't the worst I suppose. Better than I expected to be honest. Probably not worth the hassle factor though since I don't have an ideal place to put such a thing.
I do have an "always on" load of well over 200W in my home, so at least it would offset every watt it generated. I'm not sure how true that is for most folks, as most folks don't run a home lab in their basement.
epistasis•16m ago
For example, Utah, which was a balcony solar pioneer:
https://hub.utahcleanenergy.org/solar-power/for-policy-maker...