TWIDO - A New French Smart Water Heater that should help lower your Energy Bill

Discovered through EDF Pulse newsletter two weeks ago, this southern France innovation sounds brilliant to me: Be able to have a space saving - flat &  slim - water heater, composed of several small tanks in series, heatable independently and connected to the internet

Intresting quotes from the CEO & Inventor:

"You knows what they're spending on hot water ?"

"The best way to save energy is to not use it at all"

"It's about time to re-invent hot water !"

"This could save a family 20 to 30 EUR per month"



This allows you to get control back on one of the most energy consuming device at home, that had been left as is for decades ....



Slim with 25 cm of depth only


Some options can be mounted onto it, like a toilet seat, a towel dryer, or just decorative lights


Also, as it does not use a sumerged heating element, but an outter heating element - around the container -, they said it could last 20 to 30 years, instead of 10 for a regular one



Follow your hot water energy consumption - Water heater is one of the most energy consuming device at home -


The dedicated App / Website - myTwido.com - allows to get back in control with your hot water use: Heat up only the amount of water you really need instead of the whole tank in a regular unit


Program your tanks heating depending on your real needs throughout the week
Star & Stop heating each tank one by one, you can get hot water faster this way, more economically too



This company's innovative product has been selected by EDF Pulse and is about to win


This is just great, I think, and I am interested in having it installed at home

But wait, there's more ... They have a Solar Twido in the works, that should be able to use your home generated solar surplus to make hot water - like the Energeno Optimmersion in a away -


Their website: http://www.twido.fr
Their Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv6T7-7cDgGQaB2lo410zYQ
Their Facbook Page: https://www.facebook.com/mytwido

Another video featuring their CEO Olivier Cocheteux / 2&Go.com

Bidgely Video - Knowledge is Power ...

"Meet Bidgely, your personal energy adviser."

Bidgely offers a great way to know what appliance is using what kind of power and when ...
It offers a graphical breakdown by device which is really helpful in getting you empowered !

Utility companies are already offering it to their customers and I recently saw something about it at EDF (France)

=> www.Bidgely.com

Back to Winter Mode for my DIY ESS - Energy Storage System at Home making the best out of TOU rate

We are slowly entering winter here with pretty low temperatures in Paris, also the sun is lower and lower, allowing less and less solar production during the day, especially with grey clouds covering it sometimes all day long ....



So since last night, my DIY ESS goes back to its "Winter Mode", meaning it charges the battery pack at night, using half priced grid electricity - TOU plan -, and re-uses it through out the day



On the Power graph above, you can see that after the water heater has stopped at 00:30AM, the chargers continue to use 350W (limited to 4 chargers on purpose) until the electricity goes back to day rateat 6:24AM - and it started at 10:24PM the day before -

Follow my Live Power Usage and Generation with Solar and the DIY ESS



This is possible thanks to the Forced Charge Mode implemented in the Arduino program running my Home Energy Storage System




More on Forced Charge Mode on the DIY ESS Kit Website

Wasting a lot since I am on vacation and turned OFF the ESS ... Oh well

I know it is a shame but I am wasting a lot of Solar Energy these days because I switched OFF my LiFePO4 ESS, but left the SMA inverter ON; I just did not want to leave it ON all this time while far away from home with not much usage but the fridge and small appliances

So it is producing during the day and covers my daytime small usage at least , but all the Surplus is just fed back to the grid (for free and invoiced to my neighbors by the utility company BTW)

This is the perfect time to see all the surplus energy that can be stored on a daily basis

Follow home consumption from work

I can always know throught out the day how much electricity is used at home by looking at my Wattson meter remotly (on the web or on iPhone, using a webcam robot called Karotz); Here is what it looks like :



I will come back to this Wattson Energy Meter in details later, showing you where to buy, how to install and use it on a daily basis ...

Few hours later this afternoon, I recieve another picture of meter from home :