bryan1 said:
I simply put in a 75 watt globe and now my fridge only uses the RE bank @ 75 watts to keep our fridge/freezer dead cold ( infact it's just turned on or the fridge becomes a freezer).
That sounds like a waste of energy to me.
An electrical fridge probably draws an average of 75W considering the compressor isn't run continiously.
Regarding the electrical instant heating idea.
The current consumption wouldn't be an issue on a UK 3 phase style power supply - A 50A three phase breaker can supply up to 34.5kW.
However, using electricity for heating is expensive and inefficient. The power source normally comes from fossil fuels powering heat engines that are only 40% efficient at the most.
I've always thought about solar power. I know that photovoltaic cells work better at higher intensities but are they better at lower temperatures? If so they could be water cooled and the waste heat could be used to heat water.
Solar powered air conditioning also interests me, would it be cheaper to use photovoltaics to run a compressor or to directly use the heat to power an absorbtion powered refrigeration system?
Wind power is also good idea. Normally the alternator is connected to a bridge rectifier which is connected to an inverter and the excess power is fed back to the grid.
This all sounds good but I do like the idea of charging batteries so you don't need to be connected to the grid most of the time. You could also use the battery voltage directly for most applications (like lighting) which would save the extra energy lost in the inverter. You could also use the load dump resistor as a water heater.