West Kentucky Tornado Recovery
National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC), in partnership with Armada Power, recently donated Armada Power smart water heater technology to the sixty-five homes built in a disaster recovery effort spearheaded by Samaritan’s Purse. The project, located in Mayfield, KY, aims to help qualifying families and individuals who were rendered homeless by the devastating tornadoes that hit Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas on December 10, 2021. Armada Power’s technology is included in the rebuilding effort to improve the homes’ operational efficiency and help households save on energy costs. Construction on sixty-five homes should be completed in August 2025.
In addition to providing sustainability and cost-saving benefits, this effort will also serve as a pilot program for NRTC partner, West Kentucky REC, to test the technology’s demand response capabilities. If the demand response pilot program is successful, the effort may be a catalyst for West Kentucky to install the technology across more of its service area.
Armada Turns Potential Connectivity Problem Into a Dynamic Opportunity
The Armada Power device is installed at the sight of the water heater and wired into the heater’s electrical system. Under normal circumstances, the Armada Power device communicates with the utility via a wireless internet connection. For this particular project, the water heaters were installed in the homes’ bathrooms, and in order to provide a storm shelter in the event of another tornado, these bathrooms were built with 18 inches of steel reinforced concrete and a 2-inch thick stainless steel door. Because of this reinforcement, the Armada Power devices could not access the wireless signal.
To solve the problem, West Kentucky REC and Samaritan’s Purse split the cost of installing antennae and signal-boosting equipment in each home’s attic. West Kentucky REC ran a wire from the booster to the bathroom, bringing internet connectivity into the shelter. This not only allows the Armada Power device to access the wireless signal it needs, but it also provides a signal and means of communication for individuals sheltering in the bathrooms during a disaster event.
Collaboration is Key to Meeting Multiple Objectives
Armada Power is proud to be a part of this rebuilding effort. We thank Samaritan’s Purse, NRTC and West Kentucky REC for implementing our technology in order to deliver a higher level of efficiency and cost savings for their households and for approaching this rebuild with sustainability and efficiency in mind. Because the water heater is a household’s second-largest consumer of energy, tools like ours, which enable easy demand response capabilities with no noticeable impact on comfort, are critical to global carbon reduction efforts, efficient energy management, customer cost savings, and better living for all.
Find out more about Armada Power’s smart electric water heater technology.
We are dedicated to serving our communities and developing unique solutions to meet their needs. Armada Power’s smart water heater technology helps utilities, multi-family properties, and homeowners meet a variety of objectives. From cost savings to demand response to leak detection and more, our technology is on the leading edge of efficiency.
