Dual Fuel Boilers (Electric + NG) to solve heating and curtailment

GreatApe

GreatApe wrote: »

I would guess
#2 Direct electrical heating will have about 1/3th market share so about 10 million homes
#3 Heat pumps will have 1/6th market share so about 5 million homes
#4 hybrid boilers will have 1/2th market share so about 15 million homes

The above would allow lots of options but If you want to ban the gas network or get rid of it for cost reasons then heating will have to be done by heat pumps for the less efficient homes and direct electrical heating for the more efficient homes

In 2050 the UK will have about 35 million homes. My guess would be ~25 million direct electrical heating and ~10 million heat pump homes. This may add 70GW to winter demand which will have to be backed up by thermal or battery (Cant realistically be done by batteries)

The advantage of hybrid gas/electric boilers is you would not need this 70GW of thermal (CCGT) or battery backup and filling the windless voids with hybrid gas at 90% is more efficient than CCGTs to homes at 50%

1961Nick

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Odd, other than occasional reference on TV, I don't think I've ever seen or heard a tap referred to as a 'faucet' this side of the Atlantic, we'll probably be changing the way we spell colour and calling a bonnet a hood next ...

.... anyway, I'm aware of these being available as high format units for kitchen sinks, but I don't think I've ever seen one in a low format presentation for a cloakroom/bathroom basin ... are they available at Screwf1x ?

Z

I don’t know why, but I’d assumed this was a kitchen installation? A bathroom installation could be difficult due to the lack of a suitable electrical supply...both physical & load capability.

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

4 ways to heat buildings

1: Natural gas (most uk homes today)
2: Direct Electrical heating (Norway/Sweden and millions of French and even UK homes)
3: Heat Pumps (nowhere in EU does it have significant market share today, why??)
4: Hybrid gas electric (easy to produce and implement)

#1 is out due to using !!!!!!
#2 is possible but will be expensive for larger inefficient homes
#3 is probably un-affordable (40+ million heat pumps installed at a cost to the government of £5-8k each = £200-£300 billion)
#4 is basically #2 in slow motion in a more affordable and more green way

I think it will actually be a mix of #2 #3 & #4

#2 for new builds and smaller flats
#3 for large inefficient homes where the large capital cost of a heat pump can be spread among many more heat units
#4 for those homes in between the two described above where heat pumps are too expensive for the amount of heating needed

I would guess
#2 Direct electrical heating will have about 1/3th market share so about 10 million homes
#3 Heat pumps will have 1/6th market share so about 5 million homes
#4 hybrid boilers will have 1/2th market share so about 15 million homes

You have missed out NG plus h2 mix manufactured by otherwise curtailed wind power. Yes efficiencies look carp but storage potential might win out.

Doesn't stop any of 2, 3 and 4 also playing a role depending on relative efficiencies and impact on total and peak loads.

zeupater

michaels wrote: »

Fair point although for those of us with hot water tanks can store energy there as noted in my post

Hi

We already produce and store much of our own energy with our solar PV powering both our solar thermal system for stored DHW and the small heat-pump which charges up the house's internal mass during the day for most of the year to an extent that we've seriously reduced our biomass consumption.

Additionally, it's almost certain that growth in localised distributed generation & demand side microgeneration is set to outstrip that of the huge scale central generation plant for years to come and that the intermittent generation patterns of renewable energy cannot realistically be addressed through building capacity to address their minimum operating conditions as the cost would heavily outweigh that for developing strategic storage whilst still having significant supply risk ....

Pumped storage, H2, batteries, biofuels and scrubbed air derived synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are enough to think about at the moment, so take away the 'fossil' element in the gas supply industry & there's plenty of scope for extending the lifespan of the existing gas network well beyond the proposed sunset date for natural gas boilers ...

I'm old enough to remember the conversion of gas appliances from 'town gas' to 'north sea gas' and it wasn't that much of an issue then, so with the bigger brains of an overwhelming excess of current day university graduates than in the stone age that they often believe we all lived in then, the solution must be relatively simple, maybe just playing with the supply mix and changing a couple of components along the same lines as a current NG/LPG conversion kit ... :cool:

HTH
Z

Hexane

GreatApe wrote: »

For instance I have been using 10-25 KWh of gas per day this month.

Per day? In June? In the UK? Either you need to put a couple of extra sweaters on, or else you are running a small boarding school and have opted against the old boarding school economy measure of making all the kids take cold baths! Which is it?

With gas consumption figures like that in midsummer, I could sell you a solar PV setup that could save you a whole lot of money... do you have solar PV?

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

You have missed out NG plus h2 mix manufactured by otherwise curtailed wind power. Yes efficiencies look carp but storage potential might win out

Its not so easy to displace the natural gas heating infrastructure with hydrogen
The two big problems are that natural gas costs 1 penny wholesale but you pay 4 pennies at your door. Most the cost is the cost to get it to you and hydrogen is only about 1/3rd the energy volumetric density so the transport cost is going to be even higher. Plus a good chance you will have to have your pipes in your home upgraded to thicker pipes (that means tearing up walls/floors to run new pipes in your home. No thanks)

We will just accept curtailment rather than produce hydrogen
Or rather we will dump that wind energy into low value systems

For instance a person might have a dual temp thermostat. The lower set to 20 centigrade the higher set to 23 centigrade. The lower is what they want the upper is what they would like if the energy is cheap enough. So they may be willing to pay 8p/unit to get the house to 20 centigrade and only 2p/unit to go from 20-23 centigrade. If there is excess wind it will be dumped into those low value additional demand or just be curtailed

GreatApe

Also 'curtailment' will be much lessor of an issue with the next Gen offshore wind farms.
The GE Haliade-X 12 MW is quoted as 63% CF which is a significant boost to the current 40% CF offshore farms

From my understanding the main way to do this is by over sizing the blades
Imagine a 12MW wind turbine but with blades capable of harvesting 18 MW

---

Imagine you wanted to generate 250 TWH from offshore wind in the UK and that winter daily demand is average 45GW

If using 40% CF wind farms you would need 71.4 GW of wind power capacity
If using 63% CF wind farms you would need 45.3 GW of wind power capacity

You just reduced your max instantaneous wind power output by a HUGE 26.1 GW while keeping annual generation the same 250TWh therefore much easier to integrate into the grid and much less curtailment required

GreatApe

Hexane wrote: »

Per day? In June? In the UK? Either you need to put a couple of extra sweaters on, or else you are running a small boarding school and have opted against the old boarding school economy measure of making all the kids take cold baths! Which is it?

With gas consumption figures like that in midsummer, I could sell you a solar PV setup that could save you a whole lot of money... do you have solar PV?

Showers
Hot water
Standing heat losses from the tank

Smart meter shows for the last three days

17 KWh
18 KWh
20 KWh

I'm sure there are lots of inefficiencies in gas heating systems
As a guess on a pure electric system those numbers would be closer to 5KWh/day max this time of year

Winter is closer to 100-150 KWh/day

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

we'll probably be changing the way we spell colour and calling a bonnet a hood next ...

Z

We're getting old Z, it won't be a hood, we'll be jumping straight to "frunk", or if we club together and put up a fight, perhaps a "froot".

Hexane

GreatApe wrote: »

Showers
Hot water
Standing heat losses from the tank

Smart meter shows for the last three days

17 KWh
18 KWh
20 KWh

I'm sure there are lots of inefficiencies in gas heating systems
As a guess on a pure electric system those numbers would be closer to 5KWh/day max this time of year

I've seen the comments from others about long pipe runs et cetera, but gas domestic hot water heating at only around 25% efficiency seems extreme.