Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Cardew

silverwhistle said:

Incidentally, can anybody, preferably one of the 'it's all too difficult and expensive' brigade, explain how other countries can manage their better performance?

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/uk-worst-heat-pump-record-in-europe/#:~:text=The UK sells and installs,by Greenpeace UK [1].

Without looking at all the statistics of other countries, I thought the reason was that the UK made a massive switch from coal to Gas CH in the 1970's when we decided to loot our North Sea bonanza and we already had a gas network in many urban areas. Thus we have enjoyed cheap gas for nearly half a century and had no incentive to buy heat pumps.

Norway, who have the most heat pumps in Europe, have North sea huge oil/gas reserves but virtually all their energy is electricity derived from RE - mainly Hydro.

To a greater or lesser extent I suspect the lack of cheap gas in European contries has been a driver toward buying more heat pumps. I lived in Germany for some years and I cannot remember seeing a house with gas CH - it was coal/oil/electric.

Baxter100

Well I am a fully signed up member of that brigade and would love to know the answer!

A quick internet search throws up this research paper into air-to-water systems:

https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1312951/FULLTEXT01.pdf

I've given it a quick scan and they seem to have all the same issues we have here: significant performance gap between claimed and actual efficiency, only working well with underfloor heating, poorly designed/installed systems etc.

In fact the five sites they analysed in Norway (page 46) had the following SPFs : 1.9, 2.3, 1.2, 1.8 and 1.6. A grand average of 1.76.

Baxter100

Assuming this website is correct it's actually pretty surprising how much the cost of electricity varies across the European countries:

https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/

26 p/kWh - Germany

24 p/kWh - Denmark

19 p/kWh - Italy

19 p/kWh - UK

16 p/kWh - Switzerland

14 p/kWh - Poland

13 p/kWh - Finland

12 p/kWh - Sweden

10 p/kWh - Iceland

7 p/kWh - Norway

michaels

Cardew said:

silverwhistle said:

Cardew said:

Input from many posters on this forum, who have fitted Heat pumps, indicate costs are considerably in excess of £10k.

But it should also be pointed out that this is new technology in the UK, and the early adopters are by and large people with more money and larger houses, and a common theme is that the houses are well insulated. Unfortunately with our housing stock we need to do more insulating before more heat pumps.

You are also a bit out on your current pricing, although blink at the moment and the prices have changed again*.  (*Mine is currently 6p per kwh including VAT).  Heat pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.

Currently the standing charge on my gas supply is over 40% of my total bill as a very low gas user. My terrace house is fairly well insulated too so if and when my gas boiler goes on the blink I'll have some interesting calculations to do about its replacement. It is by no means as clear cut as you seem to think.

On purely financial grounds I would consider it pretty clear cut for most people to replace gas with gas, unless the subsidies for heat pumps are massively increased or the penalties on the 80% of UK properties with gas CH are massive; and that surely would be political suicide for any government. See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/energyefficiencyofhousinginenglandandwales/2020-09-23

I couldn't agree more that the housing stock in UK needs a lot more insulation, but that will add to the cost of conversion to Heat Pumps. As Baxter100 said in an earlier post today:

'Most of the lofts and cavity walls have been done. Solid wall insulation and floor insulation are prohibitively expensive (and require a large amount of upheaval as well as expertise).'

From personal experience having converted a stable I can vouch for that statement.

I do not understand how you believe 'Heat Pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.'

The whole principle of heat pumps is they have a relatively low power output and require running long periods every day - often 24/7. If the temperature is 'set back' it is usually in the middle of the night when the cheaper tariffs tend to be available. There have been plenty of cases/studies where owners have considered the running their heat pumps on an Economy 7 tariff and I have not heard of one case where it has been found viable. You can of course heat a hot water tank in the middle of the night but that function, with higher water temperatures is where a heat pump is least efficient.

One way or another the bill for UK will be horrendous. Of course we will set a fine example to the rest of the world and USA/China/India etc will be shamed into matching our reductions in emmissions - perhaps!

You may well be correct about being out of date with gas/electricity prices, because it is nearly 48 hours since I last checked!

Or we just convert RE spill to hydrogen and carry on using the existing infrastructure, afterall with current gas prices the H2 doesn't even need to be that cheap per kwh to be competitive.

shinytop

Baxter100 said:

Well I am a fully signed up member of that brigade and would love to know the answer!

A quick internet search throws up this research paper into air-to-water systems:

https://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1312951/FULLTEXT01.pdf

I've given it a quick scan and they seem to have all the same issues we have here: significant performance gap between claimed and actual efficiency, only working well with underfloor heating, poorly designed/installed systems etc.

In fact the five sites they analysed in Norway (page 46) had the following SPFs : 1.9, 2.3, 1.2, 1.8 and 1.6. A grand average of 1.76.

The article you link to explains that most of the low Norwegian SPFs are due to poor system design and extreme temperatures combined with older heat pumps in older houses.  It concludes with,

"However, when analysing the data and details about the Norwegian sites, it could be concluded that the selected system design and control settings were far from optimal for a heat pump system and the fact that the market for air-to-water heat pumps in Norway was still rather immature when the evaluated heat pumps were installed."

I don't think it's a very representative sample with which to predict the outlook for the UK.  Perhaps the ones from Germany and the UK in the article might be more appropriate? The SPFs there look more in the 2-3 region. Not as high as some might hope for but a bit more than Norway.

Martyn1981

michaels said:

Cardew said:

silverwhistle said:

Cardew said:

Input from many posters on this forum, who have fitted Heat pumps, indicate costs are considerably in excess of £10k.

But it should also be pointed out that this is new technology in the UK, and the early adopters are by and large people with more money and larger houses, and a common theme is that the houses are well insulated. Unfortunately with our housing stock we need to do more insulating before more heat pumps.

You are also a bit out on your current pricing, although blink at the moment and the prices have changed again*.  (*Mine is currently 6p per kwh including VAT).  Heat pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.

Currently the standing charge on my gas supply is over 40% of my total bill as a very low gas user. My terrace house is fairly well insulated too so if and when my gas boiler goes on the blink I'll have some interesting calculations to do about its replacement. It is by no means as clear cut as you seem to think.

On purely financial grounds I would consider it pretty clear cut for most people to replace gas with gas, unless the subsidies for heat pumps are massively increased or the penalties on the 80% of UK properties with gas CH are massive; and that surely would be political suicide for any government. See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/energyefficiencyofhousinginenglandandwales/2020-09-23

I couldn't agree more that the housing stock in UK needs a lot more insulation, but that will add to the cost of conversion to Heat Pumps. As Baxter100 said in an earlier post today:

'Most of the lofts and cavity walls have been done. Solid wall insulation and floor insulation are prohibitively expensive (and require a large amount of upheaval as well as expertise).'

From personal experience having converted a stable I can vouch for that statement.

I do not understand how you believe 'Heat Pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.'

The whole principle of heat pumps is they have a relatively low power output and require running long periods every day - often 24/7. If the temperature is 'set back' it is usually in the middle of the night when the cheaper tariffs tend to be available. There have been plenty of cases/studies where owners have considered the running their heat pumps on an Economy 7 tariff and I have not heard of one case where it has been found viable. You can of course heat a hot water tank in the middle of the night but that function, with higher water temperatures is where a heat pump is least efficient.

One way or another the bill for UK will be horrendous. Of course we will set a fine example to the rest of the world and USA/China/India etc will be shamed into matching our reductions in emmissions - perhaps!

You may well be correct about being out of date with gas/electricity prices, because it is nearly 48 hours since I last checked!

Or we just convert RE spill to hydrogen and carry on using the existing infrastructure, afterall with current gas prices the H2 doesn't even need to be that cheap per kwh to be competitive.

Yep, and according to RethinkX (and only a fool would bet against Tony Seba) SWB (solar, wind and batteries) are going to crush FF and nuclear in the next decade as their falling load factors make them stranded assets, and the marginal cost of generation starts to push prices down for storage methods, such as H2 production that you mention.

The late 2020's and early 2030's are not going to be pleasant for FF's and nuclear.

shinytop

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Cardew said:

silverwhistle said:

Cardew said:

Input from many posters on this forum, who have fitted Heat pumps, indicate costs are considerably in excess of £10k.

But it should also be pointed out that this is new technology in the UK, and the early adopters are by and large people with more money and larger houses, and a common theme is that the houses are well insulated. Unfortunately with our housing stock we need to do more insulating before more heat pumps.

You are also a bit out on your current pricing, although blink at the moment and the prices have changed again*.  (*Mine is currently 6p per kwh including VAT).  Heat pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.

Currently the standing charge on my gas supply is over 40% of my total bill as a very low gas user. My terrace house is fairly well insulated too so if and when my gas boiler goes on the blink I'll have some interesting calculations to do about its replacement. It is by no means as clear cut as you seem to think.

On purely financial grounds I would consider it pretty clear cut for most people to replace gas with gas, unless the subsidies for heat pumps are massively increased or the penalties on the 80% of UK properties with gas CH are massive; and that surely would be political suicide for any government. See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/energyefficiencyofhousinginenglandandwales/2020-09-23

I couldn't agree more that the housing stock in UK needs a lot more insulation, but that will add to the cost of conversion to Heat Pumps. As Baxter100 said in an earlier post today:

'Most of the lofts and cavity walls have been done. Solid wall insulation and floor insulation are prohibitively expensive (and require a large amount of upheaval as well as expertise).'

From personal experience having converted a stable I can vouch for that statement.

I do not understand how you believe 'Heat Pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.'

The whole principle of heat pumps is they have a relatively low power output and require running long periods every day - often 24/7. If the temperature is 'set back' it is usually in the middle of the night when the cheaper tariffs tend to be available. There have been plenty of cases/studies where owners have considered the running their heat pumps on an Economy 7 tariff and I have not heard of one case where it has been found viable. You can of course heat a hot water tank in the middle of the night but that function, with higher water temperatures is where a heat pump is least efficient.

One way or another the bill for UK will be horrendous. Of course we will set a fine example to the rest of the world and USA/China/India etc will be shamed into matching our reductions in emmissions - perhaps!

You may well be correct about being out of date with gas/electricity prices, because it is nearly 48 hours since I last checked!

Or we just convert RE spill to hydrogen and carry on using the existing infrastructure, afterall with current gas prices the H2 doesn't even need to be that cheap per kwh to be competitive.

Yep, and according to RethinkX (and only a fool would bet against Tony Seba) SWB (solar, wind and batteries) are going to crush FF and nuclear in the next decade as their falling load factors make them stranded assets, and the marginal cost of generation starts to push prices down for storage methods, such as H2 production that you mention.

The late 2020's and early 2030's are not going to be pleasant for FF's and nuclear.

What would be the cost of a SWB capability comparable to a nuclear power station?  I'm thinking about the RE generation plus enough battery back up (maybe the Tesla megapacks or similar) to give the same reliability/certainty as the nuclear plant.  I'm sure somebody has worked it out.    

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

Cardew said:

silverwhistle said:

Cardew said:

Input from many posters on this forum, who have fitted Heat pumps, indicate costs are considerably in excess of £10k.

But it should also be pointed out that this is new technology in the UK, and the early adopters are by and large people with more money and larger houses, and a common theme is that the houses are well insulated. Unfortunately with our housing stock we need to do more insulating before more heat pumps.

You are also a bit out on your current pricing, although blink at the moment and the prices have changed again*.  (*Mine is currently 6p per kwh including VAT).  Heat pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.

Currently the standing charge on my gas supply is over 40% of my total bill as a very low gas user. My terrace house is fairly well insulated too so if and when my gas boiler goes on the blink I'll have some interesting calculations to do about its replacement. It is by no means as clear cut as you seem to think.

On purely financial grounds I would consider it pretty clear cut for most people to replace gas with gas, unless the subsidies for heat pumps are massively increased or the penalties on the 80% of UK properties with gas CH are massive; and that surely would be political suicide for any government. See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/energyefficiencyofhousinginenglandandwales/2020-09-23

I couldn't agree more that the housing stock in UK needs a lot more insulation, but that will add to the cost of conversion to Heat Pumps. As Baxter100 said in an earlier post today:

'Most of the lofts and cavity walls have been done. Solid wall insulation and floor insulation are prohibitively expensive (and require a large amount of upheaval as well as expertise).'

From personal experience having converted a stable I can vouch for that statement.

I do not understand how you believe 'Heat Pumps tie in with increased renewable and using power at cheaper times, so using standard electricity prices is also misleading.'

The whole principle of heat pumps is they have a relatively low power output and require running long periods every day - often 24/7. If the temperature is 'set back' it is usually in the middle of the night when the cheaper tariffs tend to be available. There have been plenty of cases/studies where owners have considered the running their heat pumps on an Economy 7 tariff and I have not heard of one case where it has been found viable. You can of course heat a hot water tank in the middle of the night but that function, with higher water temperatures is where a heat pump is least efficient.

One way or another the bill for UK will be horrendous. Of course we will set a fine example to the rest of the world and USA/China/India etc will be shamed into matching our reductions in emmissions - perhaps!

You may well be correct about being out of date with gas/electricity prices, because it is nearly 48 hours since I last checked!

Or we just convert RE spill to hydrogen and carry on using the existing infrastructure, afterall with current gas prices the H2 doesn't even need to be that cheap per kwh to be competitive.

Yep, and according to RethinkX (and only a fool would bet against Tony Seba) SWB (solar, wind and batteries) are going to crush FF and nuclear in the next decade as their falling load factors make them stranded assets, and the marginal cost of generation starts to push prices down for storage methods, such as H2 production that you mention.

The late 2020's and early 2030's are not going to be pleasant for FF's and nuclear.

What would be the cost of a SWB capability comparable to a nuclear power station?  I'm thinking about the RE generation plus enough battery back up (maybe the Tesla megapacks or similar) to give the same reliability/certainty as the nuclear plant.  I'm sure somebody has worked it out.    

Yep, we have the NIC research, RethinkX, the Stanford University 100% RE study and report that they update every year or so, and many others that have come out over the last 5yrs or so, as the economics steadily shift in favour of RE + storage.

A good analysis would be Euan Mearns back in 2016 whose a nuclear fan, and put figures together to show the problems of RE + storage v's nuclear, and incredibly shot himself in the foot. He proposed 500GWh of intraday storage, just before BEV's started to rollout, and a UK BEV car fleet would have around 1,500GWh of flexible storage with V2G, in fact V2G from commercial sites running fleets is a serious proposal in many countries. He also suggested an RE 'spill/export' figure almost 3x more than that of the gas* percentage figure that he calculated we would need to top up generation at times, meaning that even at very low efficiency levels for longer term larger scale storage, that element would be covered - he'd actually 'solved' the problem by accident.

*Later changed to gas/bio-fuels I believe.

QrizB

shinytop said:

What would be the cost of a SWB capability comparable to a nuclear power station?  I'm thinking about the RE generation plus enough battery back up (maybe the Tesla megapacks or similar) to give the same reliability/certainty as the nuclear plant.  I'm sure somebody has worked it out.    

A couple of months ago I threw some numbers down for a sensible-sized* battery storage system:

(Just thinking out loud, a 20' shipping container full of batteries contains 800kWh. A modern container ship holds 20,000 containers so a single vessel would make a 16GWh battery. That's the size of array you're looking at to make a "battery storage power station" worthy of the name. At current battery prices of $100/kWh it would cost £1.6Bn.)

Hinkley B is rated at 3.2GWe so a 16GWh battery would match its output for 5 hours. say 5x that size for 24h of backup.

* - for some values of "sensible"!

shinytop

QrizB said:

shinytop said:

What would be the cost of a SWB capability comparable to a nuclear power station?  I'm thinking about the RE generation plus enough battery back up (maybe the Tesla megapacks or similar) to give the same reliability/certainty as the nuclear plant.  I'm sure somebody has worked it out.    

A couple of months ago I threw some numbers down for a sensible-sized* battery storage system:

(Just thinking out loud, a 20' shipping container full of batteries contains 800kWh. A modern container ship holds 20,000 containers so a single vessel would make a 16GWh battery. That's the size of array you're looking at to make a "battery storage power station" worthy of the name. At current battery prices of $100/kWh it would cost £1.6Bn.)

Hinkley B is rated at 3.2GWe so a 16GWh battery would match its output for 5 hours. say 5x that size for 24h of backup.

* - for some values of "sensible"!

I think its easy enough to work out if the numbers are available. If a nuclear PS can supply 3.2 GWe ar 99% (or whatever the predicted number is) reliability, how much RE + battery would be required to match that, taking into account the UK's likely weather patterns?

Some statistics and probability with some simulations would be needed but nothing too complicated.  My instinct is that 24h of battery backup might not be enough.  Weren't there quite a few calm cloudy days recently?  

H2 storage would help but that's not available at scale yet.