Energy efficient electric heating - does it exist?

cal97

Hello, I have just discovered we are spending a fortune on heating, mixture of wood, coal and several free standing oil filled radiators. Don't mind spending on wood and coal as I love the open fires but does anyone know of an energy efficient electric heating system? Another problem is the 2 teenagers leaving their heaters on all the time, which I am tackling by demanding they contribute to the cost! I stayed in a holiday flat which had a centrally controlled electric heating system but have trawled the net and have not been able to find anything like it. Any advice appreciated.

paul_h

The cheapest form of electric heating has to be ground source geothermal heating. In fact it probably has the cheapest running costs of all methods of heating, but the installation costs are very high - some grants are available however. It also helps if you have a reasonably sized garden for the ground arrays, but this is not essential - it just makes the installation more expensive.

Some interesting info and case studies here :

http://www.kensaengineering.com/

However, what you have seen is probably a modern, centrally controlled storage heater system, these use cheap off-peak electricity on an economy 7 tariff. Modern storage heaters are now surprisingly reasonable to run, especially if you don't have mains gas as an alternative. Some of the new centrally controlled systems such as the Credanet or Dimplex DuoHeat systems are very good indeed.

It pays to check the economy 7 charges from the different suppliers as they can vary wildly - BG are currently offering off peak electricity in my area (East Midlands) for 1.746p per unit on their 'Click Energy' online tariff, Powergen charge 3.75p per unit.

http://www.dimplex.co.uk/products/DuoHeat.pdf

http://www.applied-energy.com/en/creda/products/range/111

Some other interesting articles about electric heating :

http://www.applied-energy.com/en/creda/news?action=view&newsID=126

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2005/10/12/pjeff12.xml&sSheet=/property/2005/10/12/ixpright12.html

(this last link courtesy of Cardew, from here)

HTH

cal97

Thanks Paul for your very comprehensive reply, I will get checking out those sites.

paul_h

No problem, I hope you find it interesting reading.

I would also say that you shouldn't write off storage heaters based on previous experience - the very newest systems are a much improved product and can work very well if correctly specified. Technology has moved on, and there are currently some very interesting economy 7 tariffs available.

Cardew

As Paul says these storage systems are much better and 'user friendly' than yesteryear; although still not as convienient as a conventional gas system.

The other big saving is they do not require the expensive maintenance of boiler and system that can cost £150-200pa on gas CH.

smudger1964

you could also try out the site at https://www.electroheatplc.co.uk it looks quite interesting

grumbler

Just a piece of interesting information about energy efficient electric heating: http://www.heatpumpnet.org.uk/ :

Domestic Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are a feature of many homes in, for example, Switzerland, Norway and the Netherlands, but not many systems have been installed in the UK.

The UK market is strongly influenced by first cost for heating systems, and gas heating is fairly cheap, widely available and fairly clean. Apart from some purpose-built demonstration houses, domestic heat pumps in the UK tend to be confined to rural areas without gas supplies. In these areas oil is the main alternative which is currently very economical. Domestic heating only heat pumps can compete environmentally and economically with gas heating. Reversible heat pumps, which can also provide summer cooling, are not as efficient as those designed for heating only and are likely to result in higher heating bills and overall greater environmental impact compared to other fuels. The output of currently available domestic heat pumps is limited to approximately 5 kW so they are best suited to small or very well insulated properties.

http://www.3dair.co.uk/how.html:

HEAT PUMPS
A heat pump system, like and air conditioning system, has an indoor unit/interconnecting pipes/outdoor unit, but it also has a reversing valve which pumps the refrigerant the other way around the circuit. This “reverse cycle” operation makes the outdoor unit cool the surrounding air, and the indoor unit discharge its heat into the room. Whilst this may appear very elaborate, there are two very good reasons for having the heat pump option:

1. Most rooms which require cooling, also require heating.

2. A heat pump system capable of providing 5KW of heating in the room, consumes only 2KW of electricity – very cost effective on running costs. This means it is 2/5, or 40% of the running costs of an electric heater.

paul_h

grumbler wrote:

Just a piece of interesting information about energy efficient electric heating...

'Heat pumps' are another name for the ground source geothermal heating I mentioned earlier. The links are useful for more info...

The heat pump systems supplied by Kensa use as little as 25% of the heat output in electricity, and they also supply systems up to 32 kW output, so there's no problem with them being too small.