As an added benefit besides the environmental ones - you can’t blow out a wall and collapse a house with careless use of an induction cooker. :)
This is important for those replacing gas or propane stoves and don’t want to add the cost of running a 240V line that most resistance and induction ovens require.
OK this makes sense. It answers my WTF reaction at the thought of a battery-backed range.
Still doesn’t make much sense, though.
Induction stoves are $1000. 5kwh of batteries are $500, retailing around $2000 in the form of a power station. So, let’s call it $3000 total. The Copper Charlie goes for $6000. That extra $3000 is enough to have a 240v circuit installed by an electrician.
I also see those batteries going bad and complications in the future with such a convuluted system.
What makes it seem convoluted? It’s slightly more complex than a standard electric stove, but we have and use countless devices on a daily basis with this technology. Very rarely do they have any issues with the charging/discharge circuit.
Yes, the batteries will eventually need to be replaced, and it could be an issue during Thanksgiving (etc) when a ton of power is needed all at once. But I really think you’re overestimating the usage it will get.
In any event, this is why they’re running it as a pilot. Any real-world issues will come to light before a larger rollout.
Has the text changed? I can’t find any reference to 240v
I think this is the new section?
The winning submission came from Copper, a California-based company which designed a battery-equipped induction stove that plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet. That means the units can be used in existing NYCHA kitchens without the need for major electrical upgrades.
Ditto. I wonder if it could be more of a big capacitor, or if it is.
Seems to be LFP pack. Safe and long-lasting.
Don’t you need special pots and pans for induction stoves? Would a cast iron skillet work on one of those? Or a standard non stick pan?
Would a cast iron skillet work on one of those?
Definitely, you just need pans with a ferromagnetic bottom, so cast iron works very well.
The outer material doesn’t matter - only the base. Many cheap induction-compatible pans are made mostly of aluminum with a non-stick coating, but containing a layer of ferromagnetic material in the base that will heat up on an induction stove.
Iron is OK.
Copper and aluminum are forbidden, they will overload an induction stove, being too good conductors. Wrapping food in aluminum foil is massively forbidden, it will melt. Purely ceramic dishes are useless since they don’t conduct current at all. Ceramic dishes with a specially designed induction bottom can be used.
In case of stainless steel, I had to look it up, and Wikipedia says “some stainless steels”.
The theoretic article on induction cooking clears it up somewhat: it’s about resistance / conductance, not ferromagnetism. All mainstream kinds of stainless steel have tens of times more resistance than copper, so all mainstream stainless steel should be OK.
For high efficiency there should be as little electrical resistance in the coil and as much as possible in the pan so that most of the heat is developed in the pan.
Yes, you can test with a magnet. If it doesn’t react, it won’t work. Aluminium for instance doesn’t work.
I don’t know why you were down voted and the user below gave misinformation. I bought a non stick pan before without noticing it wouldn’t work with my induction. Now I bring a magnet when choosing a pan.
Aluminium for instance doesn’t work.
A lot of cheap pans I’ve seen at (AU) Kmart, Big W, Ikea etc are aluminum with a teflon-esque coating, but with a carbon-steel circle attached to the bottom that makes it induction compatible.
Yeah of course those kind of pans work fine. You don’t need anything special for induction. It’s standard for a lot of the country.
The battery induction stoves are pretty neat. You can plug them into a normal 120v outlet instead of needing to rewire. Plus they can be battery backups in the event of power outages.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though? I’m not sure I’d want to have “range” (pun intended) anxiety making Thanksgiving dinner.
https://copperhome.com/products/charlie
This one, as an example, has a 5 kWh battery. Having seen it in action it’ll run itself for several hours unplugged. Pretty much indefinitely if charging.
Remember, while induction ranges typically have high power ratings (10+ kW), they aren’t actually running the whole time. They use a decent amount of power for the initial heat up, or if youre running all of the burners on high trying to boil several large pots of water, but realistically that’s not how you use a range.
Once the oven is up to temperature, it just kinda oscillates on and off, using comparatively little energy. Induction burners rarely run on full power because if you’ve ever cooked with induction you know you’ll burn…everything… on high - they can really dump heat into a pan.
Actively cooking a big dinner with multiple burners, you may average about 2 kW. With 1 kW coming in from the wall, that gives you about 5 hours of sustained peak cook time.
You know, I’m not sure.
But “range” anxiety gave me a giggle so thanks for that.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though?
They run by either an electrical outlet or by battery. Another article stated the battery backup for its induction oven was one hour. Hardly worth being a feature.
One hour of being able to cook in the midst of a 12+ hour blackout can make a world of difference to hungry people.
Currently they have gas stoves that can cook for 12+ hours of a 12+ hour blackout…
I wouldn’t assume the pumps moving that gas would keep working for an extended outage. If an outage lasts that long, it’s usually over a big area.
In the last 15 years, my electricity has been out for 10+ DAYS three different times. Gas doesn’t stop.
In fact, 2 out of 3 homes in the neighborhood have Kohler style natural gas whole house generators.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate gas, but that ain’t one.
They should’ve run the electricity wires next to the gas wires, i.e. buried.
Most of the natural gas distribution network is natural gas powered, and what electric equipment exists generally has backup electrical generation equipment. It’s designed to operate independently of the electric grid, and is far more reliable.
however capacity and wear they have? Battery science is pretty curved.
Just a shame how expensive they are. Copper stoves (the ones that won the contract in the article) start at $5,999. They’re a small start-up without economy of scale on their side, but that still just seems wildly overpriced for an induction stove with a lithium battery stuck inside.
To put that price in perspective, an electric convection toaster oven that can handle most oven needs can be had for $150 to $250, and a high quality countertop induction cooktop can be had for $116 (or less used), both of which run on standard 120v outlets.
Standard 240v induction ovens start at around $850.
Also some newer ones have temp sensors so you can keep a thing at the exact temp you need.
I saw one with magnetic removable knobs to make cleaning easier.
Also the outlet bits make installs drop-in for anyone, no electrician needed.
The video of the stove setup seems great till they get to the part that you have to connect your stove to WiFi and pair it with their phone app. This means I’m never buying the Charlie stove.
If it was just a standard Matter device, I’d be fine with it. But fuck one off apps for smart devices. They are always shitty, and always get neglected or abandoned.
Those batteries can be used to provide backup power when the grid goes down.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/29/induction-ovens-with-big-batteries-solve-lots-of-problems/
I did not know this exists and I love the idea. However, the author clearly never has used an induction stove: “Because of this, they are more efficient than typical electric resistance stoves and also safer because the surface of the oven doesn’t get very hot.”
I actually thought both of those points were true.
I have induction and this is certainly true. The surface only gets heated by the pot on top. So only after a long time does it get very hot and never even close to a regular electric stove.
Good on them. I’ve only ever seen gas ranges in 100+ year old apartment buildings.
They’re coming for our gassssss
So they are replacing gas stoves because of pollution (article notes it), but adding a bunch of wildly over-priced e-waste (WiFi stove? GTFOOH), adding random fire risk (Lithium-Ion batteries are notorious for this), and doing so at tax payer expense. Nice.
I feel like the $60M (plus labor/install costs) they will spend on these stoves for 10K homes would probably do a good deal of fixing whatever the reliability issues are, in the current gas environment, without wapping 10K stoves. We all know it’s not "for the environment), it’s “who knows someone on the board at that startup selling these stoves”.
fire risk
Some I checked are using LFP batteries. LFP aren’t a fire hazard. Not sure if all of the stoves use LFP but I’d say it’s likely. Using non-LFP is significantly more expensive and they die much quicker.
Fuck the WiFi.
LFP batteries are safer than NMC. But LFP batteries can still catch fire, explode. They can’t be extinguished with water. They produce very toxic gasses. In the event of a structure fire, they remain in place, while a building’s gas supply can be turned off.
Right now everyone is installing enormous batteries everywhere with little concern for fire hazard. My suspicion is that as the number of fires, and death toll, climbs, we’re going to see increasingly strict regulations on large batteries, ultimately outlawing everything from power stations to electric cars from multi-unit residential buildings.
