Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

gefnew

Green aviation fuel to be made in Teeside.
Teesside's Lighthouse Green Fuels Project gets Saudi £1bn - BBC News

ed110220

Solarchaser said:

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

As someone on octopus go faster, I've had my rates guaranteed for another 11 months, which is great, however the gas price which is not fixed has now more than doubled. 
This puts me in the strange position of having gas which is significantly more expensive than electricity during the go faster period.

I'll be in the same position come April. As discussed elsethread I'm all set to start heating water electrically.

My combi (soon to be ripped out) is a 28kw unit, but my electric supply (brand new as of 2 weeks ago) is only 25kw

And so even if there was cost parity, or in fact no gas, I cannot simply use electricity to displace gas like for like.

In practice, you probably can. Your house is unlikely to need 28kW of heat, more likely a max of 10-15kW (you can check this by adding up the ratings of all your radiators). The combi will only get close to 28kW when supplying instantaneous hot water to eg. fill a bath. If you revert to stored hot water you're likely to have enough capacity in a 100A supply.

In the darkest /coldest months I'm using over 50kwh of gas per day and mine is not a huge house, and is well insulated.
I have friends who use triple this on a new build.

That's evidence there; if your highest winter use is 50kWh/day, that's an average of 2kW, or say 4kW if you only heat your house half the day. Your friends might need 12kW.

Heat pumps will help, sure, but they don't work in every scenario.

Which scenarios don't they work in, and do any of these apply to your home?

My thoughts are a thermal store which I heat during the go faster period, however to use as central heating, the temperature has to be above 60c really, so how do I store 50kwh of 60c+ hot water, that's going to be a huge water tank.... probably too large for a loft installation.

What you're thinking of is one (or two) of these. They claim to store 40kWh in a box the size of a washing machine.

I think you picked up on some of my post, but missed others.
Regarding the boiler, as I said, I can't replace the gas with electric LIKE FOR LIKE due to the current draw involved.

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours, so heating with electric at 2kw/ hour a. Wouldn't work as you wouldn't heat the house when everyone is in bed, nor when everyone is out at work.
If I did that, my heating requirements would be much higher.
Heating the half time at 4kw/hour while paying 15/30ppkw would bring an eye watering bill which would be the equivalent of wiping out all of the solar, batteries and insulation I've done over the past years, this is not a practical solution.

I am trying to at least be cost competitive while ditching the gas.

Heat pumps will not work for me as they require the house to have a good seal, my wife likes open windows (yes, even in the dead of winter) and will happily talk to someone at the open front door for an hour, and when back in will cosy up to the radiator because the house now feels cold 🤷‍♂️
My children have a cat which they like to call on, then leave the back door swinging open for infinity until the cat comes in.
So a heat pump will not work for me.

Perhaps the other part to state here is I have a young family, and a wife who likes things a certain way, solar optimisation was causing friction, this gave me a legitimate route to batteries, which has definitely helped marital harmony.
Having broached the subject of heat pumps.... well I won't use the exact words she used to describe them, but ugly factored, a lot.
Heat pumps will not work for me.

The link you posted appears to be a similar thing to a sunamp,  though I can only guess as it's somewhat light on detail.
If it is the same as a sunamp essentially using phase change material, the heat tops out at 57c iirc, which will probably not be enough for the radiators, certainly not if that's the highest it can reach (heat decreases as it depletes iirc)
Though when I last looked at sunamp they were talking about different phase changing materials to do different temperatures. 

If they did a phase change at say 65c then yeah, that could actually be installed under the floor and connect to the radiator loop to be used only in the dead of winter.... though usually cost is prohibitive for this kind of solution.
I'm not writing it off, just saying I've done a fair bit of research on various methods a year or so ago, and ive also spent the best part of 10k over the last few years between solar and batteries, so I cant justify another 6k on a heating solution, it's got to be *fairly* cheap.

What's most likely is I will go larger thermal store with heat exchanger to do both hot water (internal coil) and heating (heat exchanger) using the cheaper rate electricity for 80% of the time, and then take the hit for topping up heating in the dead of winter, hopefully offsetting the cost by the loss of the gas standing charge.

The other part is that I'm hoping my 15 year old combi is not so efficient, and so 75% efficiency means I really only need to cover 40 or so kwh in replacing it.

Maybe I can get away with 50c in the radiators, but I won't know that until I try, which brings me back to what I said earlier, I'm confident I can make it work for me, as I have a few different solutions. 
But that's me working around the problem.

Joe soap will not want to do this, and so the transition to pure electric will need more solutions than we currently have.

Coastalwatch, yes we have followed similar paths in some ways, i recall you got your thermal store (I plan on buying that same one on the back of your comments on it) at the time I opted for batteries, and you now have batteries when I'm looking to the thermal store.
We have similar sized houses, though mine is on 2 floors and about to become 3.
I'd guess the main difference is the extra bodies in my house, and perhaps the almost definite need to charge 1 of the two EV's every night meaning there will be less of the 25kw available purely for heating water.

How about an air to air heat pump, aka split air conditioner? We use those together with central heating at work, where things are being delivered and people coming and going all the time through automatic doors so needs to warm up quickly to counteract this. As it heats the air directly it's a lot quicker than radiators.

I suspect that part of the transition will involve at least a partial abandonment of Britain's attachment to radiators. It's worth remembering that there are lots of other ways of heating - eg I did not see a single radiator in Canada when i went there. 

shinytop

ed110220 said:

Solarchaser said:

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

As someone on octopus go faster, I've had my rates guaranteed for another 11 months, which is great, however the gas price which is not fixed has now more than doubled. 
This puts me in the strange position of having gas which is significantly more expensive than electricity during the go faster period.

I'll be in the same position come April. As discussed elsethread I'm all set to start heating water electrically.

My combi (soon to be ripped out) is a 28kw unit, but my electric supply (brand new as of 2 weeks ago) is only 25kw

And so even if there was cost parity, or in fact no gas, I cannot simply use electricity to displace gas like for like.

In practice, you probably can. Your house is unlikely to need 28kW of heat, more likely a max of 10-15kW (you can check this by adding up the ratings of all your radiators). The combi will only get close to 28kW when supplying instantaneous hot water to eg. fill a bath. If you revert to stored hot water you're likely to have enough capacity in a 100A supply.

In the darkest /coldest months I'm using over 50kwh of gas per day and mine is not a huge house, and is well insulated.
I have friends who use triple this on a new build.

That's evidence there; if your highest winter use is 50kWh/day, that's an average of 2kW, or say 4kW if you only heat your house half the day. Your friends might need 12kW.

Heat pumps will help, sure, but they don't work in every scenario.

Which scenarios don't they work in, and do any of these apply to your home?

My thoughts are a thermal store which I heat during the go faster period, however to use as central heating, the temperature has to be above 60c really, so how do I store 50kwh of 60c+ hot water, that's going to be a huge water tank.... probably too large for a loft installation.

What you're thinking of is one (or two) of these. They claim to store 40kWh in a box the size of a washing machine.

I think you picked up on some of my post, but missed others.
Regarding the boiler, as I said, I can't replace the gas with electric LIKE FOR LIKE due to the current draw involved.

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours, so heating with electric at 2kw/ hour a. Wouldn't work as you wouldn't heat the house when everyone is in bed, nor when everyone is out at work.
If I did that, my heating requirements would be much higher.
Heating the half time at 4kw/hour while paying 15/30ppkw would bring an eye watering bill which would be the equivalent of wiping out all of the solar, batteries and insulation I've done over the past years, this is not a practical solution.

I am trying to at least be cost competitive while ditching the gas.

Heat pumps will not work for me as they require the house to have a good seal, my wife likes open windows (yes, even in the dead of winter) and will happily talk to someone at the open front door for an hour, and when back in will cosy up to the radiator because the house now feels cold 🤷‍♂️
My children have a cat which they like to call on, then leave the back door swinging open for infinity until the cat comes in.
So a heat pump will not work for me.

Perhaps the other part to state here is I have a young family, and a wife who likes things a certain way, solar optimisation was causing friction, this gave me a legitimate route to batteries, which has definitely helped marital harmony.
Having broached the subject of heat pumps.... well I won't use the exact words she used to describe them, but ugly factored, a lot.
Heat pumps will not work for me.

The link you posted appears to be a similar thing to a sunamp,  though I can only guess as it's somewhat light on detail.
If it is the same as a sunamp essentially using phase change material, the heat tops out at 57c iirc, which will probably not be enough for the radiators, certainly not if that's the highest it can reach (heat decreases as it depletes iirc)
Though when I last looked at sunamp they were talking about different phase changing materials to do different temperatures. 

If they did a phase change at say 65c then yeah, that could actually be installed under the floor and connect to the radiator loop to be used only in the dead of winter.... though usually cost is prohibitive for this kind of solution.
I'm not writing it off, just saying I've done a fair bit of research on various methods a year or so ago, and ive also spent the best part of 10k over the last few years between solar and batteries, so I cant justify another 6k on a heating solution, it's got to be *fairly* cheap.

What's most likely is I will go larger thermal store with heat exchanger to do both hot water (internal coil) and heating (heat exchanger) using the cheaper rate electricity for 80% of the time, and then take the hit for topping up heating in the dead of winter, hopefully offsetting the cost by the loss of the gas standing charge.

The other part is that I'm hoping my 15 year old combi is not so efficient, and so 75% efficiency means I really only need to cover 40 or so kwh in replacing it.

Maybe I can get away with 50c in the radiators, but I won't know that until I try, which brings me back to what I said earlier, I'm confident I can make it work for me, as I have a few different solutions. 
But that's me working around the problem.

Joe soap will not want to do this, and so the transition to pure electric will need more solutions than we currently have.

Coastalwatch, yes we have followed similar paths in some ways, i recall you got your thermal store (I plan on buying that same one on the back of your comments on it) at the time I opted for batteries, and you now have batteries when I'm looking to the thermal store.
We have similar sized houses, though mine is on 2 floors and about to become 3.
I'd guess the main difference is the extra bodies in my house, and perhaps the almost definite need to charge 1 of the two EV's every night meaning there will be less of the 25kw available purely for heating water.

How about an air to air heat pump, aka split air conditioner? We use those together with central heating at work, where things are being delivered and people coming and going all the time through automatic doors so needs to warm up quickly to counteract this. As it heats the air directly it's a lot quicker than radiators.

I suspect that part of the transition will involve at least a partial abandonment of Britain's attachment to radiators. It's worth remembering that there are lots of other ways of heating - eg I did not see a single radiator in Canada when i went there. 

How about closing windows and doors and not wasting energy?  I know domestic harmony is important but still...

It's a bit like me saying, "I have a 5 litre V8 twin cab pickup truck. How can I get the best mpg on the school run?" ( don't btw!!)

Solarchaser

shinytop said:

ed110220 said:

Solarchaser said:

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

As someone on octopus go faster, I've had my rates guaranteed for another 11 months, which is great, however the gas price which is not fixed has now more than doubled. 
This puts me in the strange position of having gas which is significantly more expensive than electricity during the go faster period.

I'll be in the same position come April. As discussed elsethread I'm all set to start heating water electrically.

My combi (soon to be ripped out) is a 28kw unit, but my electric supply (brand new as of 2 weeks ago) is only 25kw

And so even if there was cost parity, or in fact no gas, I cannot simply use electricity to displace gas like for like.

In practice, you probably can. Your house is unlikely to need 28kW of heat, more likely a max of 10-15kW (you can check this by adding up the ratings of all your radiators). The combi will only get close to 28kW when supplying instantaneous hot water to eg. fill a bath. If you revert to stored hot water you're likely to have enough capacity in a 100A supply.

In the darkest /coldest months I'm using over 50kwh of gas per day and mine is not a huge house, and is well insulated.
I have friends who use triple this on a new build.

That's evidence there; if your highest winter use is 50kWh/day, that's an average of 2kW, or say 4kW if you only heat your house half the day. Your friends might need 12kW.

Heat pumps will help, sure, but they don't work in every scenario.

Which scenarios don't they work in, and do any of these apply to your home?

My thoughts are a thermal store which I heat during the go faster period, however to use as central heating, the temperature has to be above 60c really, so how do I store 50kwh of 60c+ hot water, that's going to be a huge water tank.... probably too large for a loft installation.

What you're thinking of is one (or two) of these. They claim to store 40kWh in a box the size of a washing machine.

I think you picked up on some of my post, but missed others.
Regarding the boiler, as I said, I can't replace the gas with electric LIKE FOR LIKE due to the current draw involved.

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours, so heating with electric at 2kw/ hour a. Wouldn't work as you wouldn't heat the house when everyone is in bed, nor when everyone is out at work.
If I did that, my heating requirements would be much higher.
Heating the half time at 4kw/hour while paying 15/30ppkw would bring an eye watering bill which would be the equivalent of wiping out all of the solar, batteries and insulation I've done over the past years, this is not a practical solution.

I am trying to at least be cost competitive while ditching the gas.

Heat pumps will not work for me as they require the house to have a good seal, my wife likes open windows (yes, even in the dead of winter) and will happily talk to someone at the open front door for an hour, and when back in will cosy up to the radiator because the house now feels cold 🤷‍♂️
My children have a cat which they like to call on, then leave the back door swinging open for infinity until the cat comes in.
So a heat pump will not work for me.

Perhaps the other part to state here is I have a young family, and a wife who likes things a certain way, solar optimisation was causing friction, this gave me a legitimate route to batteries, which has definitely helped marital harmony.
Having broached the subject of heat pumps.... well I won't use the exact words she used to describe them, but ugly factored, a lot.
Heat pumps will not work for me.

The link you posted appears to be a similar thing to a sunamp,  though I can only guess as it's somewhat light on detail.
If it is the same as a sunamp essentially using phase change material, the heat tops out at 57c iirc, which will probably not be enough for the radiators, certainly not if that's the highest it can reach (heat decreases as it depletes iirc)
Though when I last looked at sunamp they were talking about different phase changing materials to do different temperatures. 

If they did a phase change at say 65c then yeah, that could actually be installed under the floor and connect to the radiator loop to be used only in the dead of winter.... though usually cost is prohibitive for this kind of solution.
I'm not writing it off, just saying I've done a fair bit of research on various methods a year or so ago, and ive also spent the best part of 10k over the last few years between solar and batteries, so I cant justify another 6k on a heating solution, it's got to be *fairly* cheap.

What's most likely is I will go larger thermal store with heat exchanger to do both hot water (internal coil) and heating (heat exchanger) using the cheaper rate electricity for 80% of the time, and then take the hit for topping up heating in the dead of winter, hopefully offsetting the cost by the loss of the gas standing charge.

The other part is that I'm hoping my 15 year old combi is not so efficient, and so 75% efficiency means I really only need to cover 40 or so kwh in replacing it.

Maybe I can get away with 50c in the radiators, but I won't know that until I try, which brings me back to what I said earlier, I'm confident I can make it work for me, as I have a few different solutions. 
But that's me working around the problem.

Joe soap will not want to do this, and so the transition to pure electric will need more solutions than we currently have.

Coastalwatch, yes we have followed similar paths in some ways, i recall you got your thermal store (I plan on buying that same one on the back of your comments on it) at the time I opted for batteries, and you now have batteries when I'm looking to the thermal store.
We have similar sized houses, though mine is on 2 floors and about to become 3.
I'd guess the main difference is the extra bodies in my house, and perhaps the almost definite need to charge 1 of the two EV's every night meaning there will be less of the 25kw available purely for heating water.

How about an air to air heat pump, aka split air conditioner? We use those together with central heating at work, where things are being delivered and people coming and going all the time through automatic doors so needs to warm up quickly to counteract this. As it heats the air directly it's a lot quicker than radiators.

I suspect that part of the transition will involve at least a partial abandonment of Britain's attachment to radiators. It's worth remembering that there are lots of other ways of heating - eg I did not see a single radiator in Canada when i went there. 

How about closing windows and doors and not wasting energy?  I know domestic harmony is important but still...

It's a bit like me saying, "I have a 5 litre V8 twin cab pickup truck. How can I get the best mpg on the school run?" ( don't btw!!)

A re-map??

I can only assume you are not married /cohabiting or the comment about domestic harmony would not end with "but still".

Coastalwatch I think you are making it work for you with towel rads and heaters, and so again you are finding ways to get around the problem, as I will do.
My main point is that the general public don't want to work around the issue, and 100a supply doesn't lend itself to a straightforward direct fix.

Imo having cabling upgraded would have been a good way to go, but as mine is brand new and only 100a, I guess that's not going to happen.

There are many different ways to heat a home, definitely,  in North America its popular to use air heating, but the vast majority of that burns gas.

If I hadn't basically redone 80% of the house in the last 5 years, id probably look to do underfloor heating everywhere as it runs at a lower temperature and lends itself better to solar thermal, as well as getting rid of radiators, but thats sadly not an option for me.

Heat pumps, if I had to go that way would be ground source rather than air source, but I'll point again to the wife's veto on the grounds of ugliness.
Some things are possible,  but some things definitely are not.

2nd_time_buyer

ed110220 said:

Solarchaser said:

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

As someone on octopus go faster, I've had my rates guaranteed for another 11 months, which is great, however the gas price which is not fixed has now more than doubled. 
This puts me in the strange position of having gas which is significantly more expensive than electricity during the go faster period.

I'll be in the same position come April. As discussed elsethread I'm all set to start heating water electrically.

My combi (soon to be ripped out) is a 28kw unit, but my electric supply (brand new as of 2 weeks ago) is only 25kw

And so even if there was cost parity, or in fact no gas, I cannot simply use electricity to displace gas like for like.

In practice, you probably can. Your house is unlikely to need 28kW of heat, more likely a max of 10-15kW (you can check this by adding up the ratings of all your radiators). The combi will only get close to 28kW when supplying instantaneous hot water to eg. fill a bath. If you revert to stored hot water you're likely to have enough capacity in a 100A supply.

In the darkest /coldest months I'm using over 50kwh of gas per day and mine is not a huge house, and is well insulated.
I have friends who use triple this on a new build.

That's evidence there; if your highest winter use is 50kWh/day, that's an average of 2kW, or say 4kW if you only heat your house half the day. Your friends might need 12kW.

Heat pumps will help, sure, but they don't work in every scenario.

Which scenarios don't they work in, and do any of these apply to your home?

My thoughts are a thermal store which I heat during the go faster period, however to use as central heating, the temperature has to be above 60c really, so how do I store 50kwh of 60c+ hot water, that's going to be a huge water tank.... probably too large for a loft installation.

What you're thinking of is one (or two) of these. They claim to store 40kWh in a box the size of a washing machine.

I think you picked up on some of my post, but missed others.
Regarding the boiler, as I said, I can't replace the gas with electric LIKE FOR LIKE due to the current draw involved.

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours, so heating with electric at 2kw/ hour a. Wouldn't work as you wouldn't heat the house when everyone is in bed, nor when everyone is out at work.
If I did that, my heating requirements would be much higher.
Heating the half time at 4kw/hour while paying 15/30ppkw would bring an eye watering bill which would be the equivalent of wiping out all of the solar, batteries and insulation I've done over the past years, this is not a practical solution.

I am trying to at least be cost competitive while ditching the gas.

Heat pumps will not work for me as they require the house to have a good seal, my wife likes open windows (yes, even in the dead of winter) and will happily talk to someone at the open front door for an hour, and when back in will cosy up to the radiator because the house now feels cold 🤷‍♂️
My children have a cat which they like to call on, then leave the back door swinging open for infinity until the cat comes in.
So a heat pump will not work for me.

Perhaps the other part to state here is I have a young family, and a wife who likes things a certain way, solar optimisation was causing friction, this gave me a legitimate route to batteries, which has definitely helped marital harmony.
Having broached the subject of heat pumps.... well I won't use the exact words she used to describe them, but ugly factored, a lot.
Heat pumps will not work for me.

The link you posted appears to be a similar thing to a sunamp,  though I can only guess as it's somewhat light on detail.
If it is the same as a sunamp essentially using phase change material, the heat tops out at 57c iirc, which will probably not be enough for the radiators, certainly not if that's the highest it can reach (heat decreases as it depletes iirc)
Though when I last looked at sunamp they were talking about different phase changing materials to do different temperatures. 

If they did a phase change at say 65c then yeah, that could actually be installed under the floor and connect to the radiator loop to be used only in the dead of winter.... though usually cost is prohibitive for this kind of solution.
I'm not writing it off, just saying I've done a fair bit of research on various methods a year or so ago, and ive also spent the best part of 10k over the last few years between solar and batteries, so I cant justify another 6k on a heating solution, it's got to be *fairly* cheap.

What's most likely is I will go larger thermal store with heat exchanger to do both hot water (internal coil) and heating (heat exchanger) using the cheaper rate electricity for 80% of the time, and then take the hit for topping up heating in the dead of winter, hopefully offsetting the cost by the loss of the gas standing charge.

The other part is that I'm hoping my 15 year old combi is not so efficient, and so 75% efficiency means I really only need to cover 40 or so kwh in replacing it.

Maybe I can get away with 50c in the radiators, but I won't know that until I try, which brings me back to what I said earlier, I'm confident I can make it work for me, as I have a few different solutions. 
But that's me working around the problem.

Joe soap will not want to do this, and so the transition to pure electric will need more solutions than we currently have.

Coastalwatch, yes we have followed similar paths in some ways, i recall you got your thermal store (I plan on buying that same one on the back of your comments on it) at the time I opted for batteries, and you now have batteries when I'm looking to the thermal store.
We have similar sized houses, though mine is on 2 floors and about to become 3.
I'd guess the main difference is the extra bodies in my house, and perhaps the almost definite need to charge 1 of the two EV's every night meaning there will be less of the 25kw available purely for heating water.

How about an air to air heat pump, aka split air conditioner? We use those together with central heating at work, where things are being delivered and people coming and going all the time through automatic doors so needs to warm up quickly to counteract this. As it heats the air directly it's a lot quicker than radiators.

I suspect that part of the transition will involve at least a partial abandonment of Britain's attachment to radiators. It's worth remembering that there are lots of other ways of heating - eg I did not see a single radiator in Canada when i went there. 

Yes, I agree it would make logical sense and would be a much easier and cheaper conversion than air-to-water for most households.

Currently there are no grants available for air to air. I believe the reason is that they also able to cool which will result in energy been used that otherwise wouldn't.

It would be interesting to know whether an air-to-air heat pump that is not able to provide cooling, would be eligible for grants. If so, it could just require a change to the firmware of existing designs.

michaels

WE used 40Mwh of gas heating/hot water last year (don't even begin to ask) using a gas boiler rated 19kwh that modulates down to 4kwh and a 200l hot water tank so I don't think a 100A fuse would be a constraint for normal usage.

QrizB

Solarchaser said:

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours

You choosing a tariff with only 3 hours immediately rules out a like-for-like solution. I don't see any point reading further through your post when you're going to skew the argument like this needlessly.

Solarchaser

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

I think you perhaps missed the bit about having a lower electric cost for only 3 hours

You choosing a tariff with only 3 hours immediately rules out a like-for-like solution. I don't see any point reading further through your post when you're going to skew the argument like this needlessly.

Edit to remove my reply.

What's the point in responding to this kind of post in kind? Meh

Solarchaser

gefnew said:

Hydrogen homes in Scotland trail.
The neighbourhood leading a green energy revolution - BBC News
This is to be run by national grid.

It's great this is finally coming to pass, though looking at this previous article, it was always going to be 2022 (just feels like it's been about to happen for years)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/30/scottish-green-hydrogen-fife

I think this will be a good solution on a fairly small scale, but there seems to be a disagreement over whether it's a "simple modification " to convert existing boilers or if it's a new boiler, which is obviously significant. 

Also as hydrogen is less energy dense, there will need to be more supplied, which on a basic level means replacing pipes or increasing pressure in existing pipes.

I'm reminded of the house which was flattened a few months ago in Ayrshire,
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/ayrshire/probe-huge-ayr-gas-explosion-25475533

And that makes me lean more to electric rather than gas, for the same reason I lean more to windmills/solar/batteries rather than nuclear..... what's the worst case scenario when it goes wrong.

Verdigris

Town gas was mostly hydrogen. It was great; you could make gas balloons from old dry cleaning bags and send things into low earth orbit.