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Electric Boilers

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  • michaels
    michaels Posts: 29,113 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    GreatApe wrote: »
    How do you buy electricity for 4p a unit? I see no such thing on the octopus website

    Just had a google, 5p a unit. Google octopus EV.
    I think....
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    michaels wrote: »
    Just had a google, 5p a unit. Google octopus EV.

    5p a unit is good but the problem with these tariffs is that you can't guarantee they will be around for much more than one year while you would be designing a heating system for 20+ years

    5p for four hours a day
    14.12p other times
    25p standing charge
    2,000 units for normal electricity
    2,000 units for EV Or for baseload heating (just a tank)

    Would work out at about 11.4p average price per unit
    Vs 15.7p for the same number of units on a normal tariff
    About £170 quid saving

    One of the problems though with a tank is significant standing heat loss Vs a combi
    Also you can't store a huge amount of useable energy in a water tank
    Plus you don't want the heat much more than 65 centigrade or you get people burn themselves with excessively hot water and it ain't worth burning yourself to try save a few pennies

    Perhaps micro grids for district heating will be feasible
    A 15 ton tank underground (insulated small container2.5x2.5x2.5meters) could offer storage and supply for 100 homes or flats.
    Heat it with two heat pumps or two gas boilers rather than having 100 tanks 100 gas boilers or 100 heat pumps. Let the energy company do the maintenance and charge users 4-5p a unit of heat.
    Buying and installing 100 boilers might be £200,000 while this should cost sub £5,000 for two boilers plus whatever the tank costs. The system is very basic just a cold water line in and a few insulated hot lines out so I can't imagine it costing w huge amount and they probably already exists for hotels etc. Certainly for new builds or converting blocks of flats
  • michaels
    michaels Posts: 29,113 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    It is no problem to mix water to prevent scalding, similar for rads, you would probably not change the water in the store and just use a heat exchanger to draw off the energy as required.

    An earlier poster mentioned they had put in a 1000l tank to store enough heat to meet their DHW and space heating requirements for 24 hours (or in this example you would need to store for 20 hours until cheap rate came back again).

    One question might be how many KWs you were drawing during those 4 hours - say 28kwh into your EV and another 170kwh to cover 24 hour water and space heating (peak) = 200kwh in 4 hours = 50kwh per hour @240v = 208Amps!!!!
    I think....
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    michaels wrote: »
    It is no problem to mix water to prevent scalding, similar for rads, you would probably not change the water in the store and just use a heat exchanger to draw off the energy as required.

    An earlier poster mentioned they had put in a 1000l tank to store enough heat to meet their DHW and space heating requirements for 24 hours (or in this example you would need to store for 20 hours until cheap rate came back again).

    One question might be how many KWs you were drawing during those 4 hours - say 28kwh into your EV and another 170kwh to cover 24 hour water and space heating (peak) = 200kwh in 4 hours = 50kwh per hour @240v = 208Amps!!!!



    Wow I have some long winded posts if only I could put a turbine in front of my mouth

    In short this isn't a solution to anything
    A few people can make use of a gimmick night time cheap rate
    We aren't yet ever at 0% NG in the grid so any demand even during this 4h period is still marginal NG fired at perhaps 50% instead of the boiler on the wall at 80-90% so not a good idea for now

    Future for heating for the UK or even Germany is something like France or what France is tending to by 2030 only we will get there a 10-15 years later

    Roughly
    65% electricity heating with a mix of heat pumps and resistance heaters
    25% natural gas
    10% other (Wood Oil LPG for those remote homes)
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    Heating should be socialised I don't see another rapid way if doing it

    Government should give out contracts in batches of 50 homes to companies which should bid for the work. Giving out said contracts monthly and to start with just 100,000 heat pumps for 2020 then 300,000 then 400,000 and so on until 2030 is 1 million units and continue this way so by 2040 some 20 million heat pumps would be installed by 2040. Then carrying on at 2 million per year until full coverage by 2050

    This will create a competitive market and lower prices and increase quality
    The bad companies can be barred from bidding
    New innovations will come online
    Just like with wind power the cost will go down the quality will go up

    Public will be happy as they see stuff for 'free' but of course paid for via taxes
    It's not regressive unlike asking all homes to fit roughly the same cost system irrespective of a 1 bed flat or a 7 bed mansion

    Government can keep quality high so consumers don't have to guess who is a good company and who are incompetent

    If system prices can be reduced to £4k average maybe this can be an 'affordable' £150 billion spread across 30 years. Also gives time to build offshore wind farms to power these things

    Perhaps small electric tank (150 liters) for hot water and air to air heat pumps would do better than air to water systems. For small properties with low demand for heating might be ok with tank for hot water and resistance wall heaters for heating. If heating demand is say only sub 2,000 units for a efficient small flat it's probably not worth building a heat pump just resistance heat it.
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