Thermal storage may bring back baseboard heating

Electric Thermal Storage leverages off-peak electricity to heat ceramic bricks that radiate heat for hours, lowering oil costs for Maine homes, with Bangor Hydro and Central Maine Power offering compatible rate plans.

When it comes to heating sources, a lot of homeowners won't consider electric heat. But a new company in Saco is hoping to change that.

Thermal Energy Storage of Maine is promoting electric heating in Maine through electric thermal storage systems. They say the devices can provide as much as sixty percent of a home's heating needs, and do it for less money than oil.

The units are filled with heavy ceramic bricks, sandwiched between electric coils. They heat up to 1,100 degrees, and then radiate the heat for hours.

Sam Zaitlin, President of Thermal Energy Storage, says the devices are designed to use what is called off-peak power, similar to utility thermal storage programs that shift demand. That means they heat up at night when electricity is much cheaper.

Special arrangements with the electric company are needed for that, but Zaitlin says both Bangor Hydro and Central Maine Power already offer the service, as Maine's power position continues to change. He says the units are common in a number of other states, in Canada and in Europe, but are not well known in Maine.

He says this can be another way to reduce the state's dependence on foreign oil.

"Right now our game plan is to offer these units, beginning the first quarter of 2011 with a locked in electricity price in the range, although grid bottlenecks can affect rollouts, the equivalent range of 2.45 to 250 a gallon oil. Locked in two years at a time," said Zaitlin.

Zaitlin says the electric heating units are an ideal companion to Maine's growing number of wind farms and emerging wind storage in homes concepts that balance supply. He says the state's current energy plan calls for three thousand megawatts of wind power by 2020.

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