In buildings with water heating this is already commonly done, accumulating heat in water tanks. Size of water tanks is dimensioned after how much heat you have to store.

Electric heating with water heating is sometimes used in Northern Europe at least, often with a heat pump.

Ultimate would be solar panels on the roof, heat pump to multiply the electricity 3x-5x and water tank storage to last 24 hours.... Never recoup the investment though..

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mrgaro 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

At least in Nordics (I'm from Finland) heat pumps are rapidly replacing other forms of heating. One can get a big enough heat pump for a 200m^2 house (including heating hot water) for around 10-15k, with a few thousand more for installation price.

Adding 10-15kWp of solar panels to the roof is around 6k more. It's definitively a no-brainer as it will recoup the investment in 5-10 years.

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actionfromafar 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Especially if panels continue to drop in price, a heat pump will just add needless complexity.

	▲	thyristan an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Depends on the location, but around here solar for heating is completely useless. In Germany (which is farther south than the nordics and gets far more sunlight), solar panels are already insufficient for heating half of the year. On a typical single-family home, you will get at most 10kW peak power solar on the roof, which you can reach in the summer months when there are no clouds. In winter, those 10kWp will generate at most 5kWh of energy per day. Which is a factor of 4 to 5 below the 20 to 30kWh per average day for heating (with generous insulation). The farther north you go, the worse this gets. Half of the nordics get essentially no sun at all in winter, and are quite a bit colder than Germany. So you need something other than the sun to heat your home in winter. A heat pump can double, maybe triple the solar energy you might get on sunny winter days, but that doesn't usually cut it. So you need grid electricity, wood or fossil fuels. And when electricity prices are as low as in the nordics (around or below 20ct/kWh), heat pumps are totally viable. Adding solar can be sensible for cooling in the summer months, and maybe a bit of hot water, and heating in late spring, early autumn. But for winter? Totally useless. And while you could do long-term storage, that will cost you several arms and legs, tons of space and a huge maintenance hassle. And if anything should go wrong with your storage, you have no heat all winter and better have an emergency plan...