In the past week I’ve stumbled on three startups I wish I’d known about when I did the things described in previous posts:
Harvest Thermal makes a combined HVAC and hot water heat pump system that uses the hot water tank as a thermal battery, so both water heating and HVAC demand can be time-shifted to when cheap green power is available. If they had existed when we installed our heat pump I would definitely have tried to get their system. Looks like they are only installing in northern CA right now; if you’re around here and in the heat pump market, do check them out.
Sealed uses a clever “pay only if you save” financing model to make building efficiency upgrades, as well as heat pump installs, attractive to homeowners. Their service is rolling out on the East Coast (NY, NJ, CT, PA) so far.
OhmConnect has an energy saving alert service with smart home device integration to help you take the right power-saving actions at the right time to shift demand away from peaks, much like what I proposed after the recent CA heat wave. I tried to sign up but am apparently ineligible because we already participate in another demand response program, presumably the Tesla virtual power plant pilot.
I also found Sherry Listgarten's blog. Sherry is a former Googler like me and is clearly on a similar incremental-greening journey. She has a lot of great posts, very detailed and informative, including:
an electrification case study from her parents
an experience report for her heat pump water heater which is probably next on my list of greentech to invest in
and useful explainers on bidirectional EV charging and electrical panels.