The WHEN Solution in Action
The first “real world” application of WHEN is with basic residential electric, 2-element water heaters that do not have any heat pump or “smart” technology (boilers, gas, and smart water heaters don’t work with our load controllers).
Mosaic has designed customized water heater control equipment that attaches to these water heaters, allowing our WHEN program to turn them on and off remotely based on real-time indicators from the energy grid. It sounds complicated, but all we need is about 20 minutes per water heater to install our equipment and we’re off and running.
Mosaic Power has been using WHEN to regulate water heaters since 2014, and currently has over 20,000 total water heaters in our virtual power plant. These water heaters span over 100 different properties across dozens of different property owners and managers.
By partnering with Mosaic, property owners and managers enjoy the following benefits:
A smooth and simple installation
Mosaic brings all the necessary hardware and resources to do the installation, all the property has to do is provide access to each unit for about 20 minutes.
No impact to tenants’ hot water
WHEN does not cause cold shower complaints. We build a usage profile for each tenant to anticipate their need for hot water and heat their water accordingly, prioritizing their needs over the regulation process that makes us money.
Consistent, solid financial returns
WHEN is integrated directly with the grid 24×7, constantly looking for ways to ease the burden of the water heaters on the grid (and the environment) and earning revenue in the process.
Early warning detection on water heater malfunctions.
WHEN monitors the power consumed by each water heater, and when the water heater suddenly consumes much more power than usual over an extended period of time, it’s usually a sign that there is a problem with the water heater. WHEN can find a bad water heater before your tenant does, saving you and your tenant time, hassle, and cost!
Knowledge that you’re contributing to a cleaner world.
You and your tenants can be happy and proud that you’re taking yet another step to reduce your carbon footprint and decarbonize the energy grid! We estimate that we reduce about 1.4 metric tons of CO2 emissions per water heater per year!
Potential for green energy tax credits.
Mosaic typically qualifies for “energy storage” tax credits that are becoming more common, both at the state level (like in Maryland) and at the federal level (through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022).
