Patent ID: 9677809
Date: 2017-06-13
CPC Classifications: F25B,F25D,F28D,Y02B,Y02E

Claim:
1. A system for storing energy from an electrical grid comprising: a thermal storage reservoir at a premise location for containing liquid that can be heated or cooled to respectively add energy to or remove energy from the thermal storage reservoir; a system heat pump at the premise location coupled to the electrical grid to receive electrical energy from the grid to power the system heat pump, the system heat pump being operable to convert electrical energy from the grid to thermal energy, the system heat pump being coupled to the thermal storage reservoir and operable to deliver thermal energy to the thermal storage reservoir to heat the liquid in the thermal storage reservoir; a premises heat pump at the premise location coupled to the electrical grid to receive electrical energy from the electrical grid to power the premise location heat pump, the premises heat pump being coupled to the thermal storage reservoir and operable to remove thermal energy from the premise location for delivery to the thermal storage reservoir to provide cooling for the premises and operable to remove thermal energy from the thermal storage reservoir to provide heating for the premise location; and a first controller coupled to the system heat pump and operable to control the system heat pump in a heating cycle so as to deliver thermal energy to the thermal storage reservoir regardless of whether energy is being extracted from the thermal storage reservoir by the premises heat pump, wherein the premises heat pump is operable to remove thermal energy from or deliver thermal energy to the thermal storage reservoir independently of whether the system heat pump is delivering thermal energy to or removing thermal energy from the thermal storage reservoir; wherein the first controller has an input for receiving control instructions to control the system heat pump to be operable in response to control instructions in a plurality of modes, the first controller input receiving control instructions from a remote location that is different than the premise location, wherein in response to control instructions from the remote location, the first controller controls the operation of the system heat pump at the premise location to deliver thermal energy to the thermal storage reservoir at the premise location to thereby sink a quantity of energy from the electrical grid into the thermal storage reservoir at the premise location.