Manufacturing Scale-Up for Combined Heating and Hot Water Thermal Battery System
Harvest Thermal, Inc.
Recipient
Recipient Location
7th
Senate District
14th
Assembly District
$26,151
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
In 2025, the project made incremental but meaningful progress despite ongoing challenges with yield and supply chain transitions. Efforts centered on improving manufacturing yield and stabilizing processes amid product redesigns for new component sourcing. While throughput briefly reached three units per day, overall yield remains below the 95% target, prompting continued focus on engineering refinements. A gasket redesign eliminated a major failure mode, improving first-pass yield by 20%, and enhanced testing protocols provided detailed failure attribution to guide further improvements. Advanced supply chain resilience through qualification of alternative suppliers and compliance work for tax credit eligibility, while ERP implementation remains deferred. Incremental progress was also made on order management automation and incoming inspection processes.
The Issue
The Harvest Pod technology is designed to address a critical issue in California’s energy landscape: the high greenhouse gas emissions and peak electricity demand caused by heating, hot water, and cooling systems in homes. Current electric HVAC solutions, while better than gas systems, still tend to operate during peak demand periods and fail to provide sufficient cost savings compared to gas, making them less attractive for widespread adoption.
Project Innovation
The Harvest Pod innovation is a smart thermal storage and control system designed to decarbonize home heating, cooling, and hot water while improving grid efficiency. It integrates off-the-shelf components (heat pump, water tank, air handler) with an intelligent controller that uses the water tank as a thermal battery. This allows the system to shift most electricity use to off-peak times, reducing costs for homeowners and easing strain on the grid.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This Agreement will result in the ratepayer benefits of greater electricity reliability, lower costs, and increased safety, by enabling the low volume ramp of the Harvest Thermal technology which costs less to install and operate than conventional gas and heat pump solutions
Affordability
Lower energy costs for consumers, with up to 30% bill savings compared to conventional systems.
Reliability
Greater electricity reliability and grid resilience by shifting heating and hot water loads to off-peak times, reducing strain on the grid.
Reliability
The ability to shift the full heating and hot water load of homes to off-peak times enables the state to achieve its renewable energy and resilience goals at a lower cost than with conventional heat pump systems.
Key Project Members
Evan Green
Subrecipients
GainShare Solutions
Right Brain Electronics
ALS Group USA, Corp. (dba Columbia Analytical Services, Inc.)
Match Partners
Sgs North America Inc.
Harvest Thermal, Inc.
GainShare Solutions
Sonic Manufacturing Technologies
