Microsoft Highlights Steffes’ Mission to Revolutionize Renewable Energy Storage
Microsoft visited our Dickinson facility in October to talk with our C.E.O. Paul Steffes about Steffes’ ongoing mission to revolutionize how renewable energy is utilized through grid interactive storage.
“Renewable energy is a wonderful thing, but all of our main renewable sources are variable” says Paul Steffes. “The sun comes up, clouds come out, wind comes up, wind goes down. And so we need vast amounts of flexible resources and affordable energy storage to reach high usage of renewable energy.”
Steffes has designed electric water heaters that leverage the cloud to communicate and connect as a giant battery that can store and determine how to best use the energy.
In the United States, there are 45 million electric water heaters. If utilities connect those devices to the cloud, forming an enormous battery that keeps wind turbines spinning and stabilizes the grid, the nation would gain the equivalent of more than 200 clean power plants. 
Water heaters make up 40% of a homes total energy usage, So having an affordable and more efficient water heater that is utilizing renewable energy will make a large scale impact on energy consumption as well as save the homeowner money.
Check out this awesome video Microsoft produced as a result of their visit to hear Paul Steffes talking about this project!
For a more in depth article about the project, check out this one from Microsoft as well!
Special thank you to Microsoft for sharing this video and providing quotes from their interview with Paul along with some of the information above!