The UK grid is already solved we do not need more mass PV/Tidal/Nuclear/Wind

GreatApe

ed110220 wrote: »

Excellent point, especially as heat pumps are not as good at heating water to higher temps as they are at giving lower temp heating, so solar immersion heating of hot water would go well with heat pump space heating. There I was thinking he was just aping the fossil fuel lobby

Heat pumps can work if you have perfect heat pumps running on perfect setups with fairly competent households operating them and they were installed by a proper engineer taking good care of his work. Basically they aren't fit for purpose for average homes average installers and average users. Why else do you think Norway and Sweden are ~100% electrically heated rather than ~100% heat pump heated?? Are they in the pockets of big resistance heater selling them $5 dolla fan heathers? :rotfl::eek:

I can give you multiple examples of why they don't work in the real world

For instance many homes have !!!! radiator designs including my own home so much so their their boilers don't even work on condensing node as they have to set the temps really high to get the house warm with their limit sized rads

I'd have to rip up the rads and place at least 3 X as many rads. Guess what? Most people don't want to do that nor do most people have the £5-£10k to redesign their homes heating systems to rip out pipes and put walls back together again not do most people want to or can take out a loan to pay for that

That more or less means wet systems aren't Gona be changed it's too costly
The government isn't going to give out 30 million X £5-10k to install heat pumps that's £150-£300 billion


How about air to air heat pumps
These might have more chance of working or at least being a co-heat source

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

Norway and Sweden are colder in the winter than the UK, so air to air heat pumps in particular aren't as good a solution as they are in milder climates. Any one of the regular contributors to these forums who has installed a heat pump can attest to their efficiency in the UK. and different countries evolve differently; pointing out that heat pumps aren't widely deployed in Scandinavia proves nothing.

Erm for a start Oslo winter isn't that much colder than Glasgow about 5 centigrade
And for 6 coldish months the temp is close to our winter temps.
March April May SEP Oct Nov is like our winter months.
If heat pumps make sense in the UK they make more sense in Norway

So I ask again why are heat pumps not dominant in Norway?

Or even France which again has millions of electric only homes why not heat pump instead?

The answer is the same for both
People don't want to spend £5-15k on a heat pump setup when £1k on resistance heating is so much cheaper to install and also the capital cost and maintenance is cheaper

I am happy to change my mind when you show me some evidence that millions of electrically heated homes in Norway or Sweden or France are switching over to heat pumps and ditching resistance heating

I will say again, I hope heat pumps work
There will be two benefits for the UK
1. Less electricity needed
2. Significant excess cheap Norway electricity thanks to their citizens also installing heat pumps

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

Norway and Sweden are colder in the winter than the UK, so air to air heat pumps in particular aren't as good a solution as they are in milder climates. Any one of the regular contributors to these forums who has installed a heat pump can attest to their efficiency in the UK. and different countries evolve differently; pointing out that heat pumps aren't widely deployed in Scandinavia proves nothing.

Actually I retract my statement

Seems heat pumps while not common in Oslo where I have been multiple times, they are more common elsewhere in Norway with about 20% of households having them

Still begs the question why it isn't closer to full adoption and why resistance heating still dominates. Larger more energy hungry properties use heat pumps which makes sense as the capital cost can be spread among more units

I still stick to my main assumption which was 1/3rd of homes heat pumps 1/3rd resistance heating and 1/3rd hybrid which I think a more likely model than 100% heat pump model

markin

Heat pumps seem to be booming next door in Finland

The investments in the more than 60 000 installed heat pumps was up to as much as half a billion euros per year. The thermal output of the installed heat pumps in 2017 was 500 MW. ..... More than 800 000 heat pumps have now been installed in Finland, and they produce 6-7 TWh of renewable energy per year

Population of 5,500,000 , Households 2,499,332




70% new builders choose Heat Pump.
https://www.ehpa.org/fileadmin/red/03._Media/Publications/Press_Release_-_Heat_Pump_Investments_up_to_a_Half_Billion_a_Year_in_Finland.pdf

GreatApe

Very interesting

https://www.ehpa.org/about/news/article/heat-pump-sales-2018-in-finland-shot-up-by-22-investments-exceed-half-a-billion/

75,000 heat pumps installed in 2018 that would be like installing 1 million in the UK
Very significant. They seem to be installing at a rate of 3% of their housing stock per year and are already at 35% let's hope they continue at this rate for at least another decade if for no other reason than to have an example of a high heat pump system and its effectiveness

zeupater

markin wrote: »

Heat pumps seem to be booming next door in Finland


Population of 5,500,000 , Households 2,499,332




70% new builders choose Heat Pump.
https://www.ehpa.org/fileadmin/red/03._Media/Publications/Press_Release_-_Heat_Pump_Investments_up_to_a_Half_Billion_a_Year_in_Finland.pdf

Hi

Possibly something to do with the efficiency & operating range of newer generation units then! ...

This is the high efficiency unit a couple on these boards have installed, which, as you'll guess by the link title, is probably one of the units involved ... Toshiba Daiseikai 8 luft-luft varmepump .. don't worry, it's in English! ... anyway, note the operating range & what they consider as being 'mild temperatures' and consider why this could be relevant to the rate of uptake of AAHPs in the charts above ! ...

HTH
Z

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Possibly something to do with the efficiency & operating range of newer generation units then! ...

This is the high efficiency unit a couple on these boards have installed, which, as you'll guess by the link title, is probably one of the units involved ... Toshiba Daiseikai 8 luft-luft varmepump .. don't worry, it's in English! ... anyway, note the operating range & what they consider as being 'mild temperatures' and consider why this could be relevant to the rate of uptake of AAHPs in the charts above ! ...

HTH
Z

Finland uses 3.2 X the electricity we do per capita

Next year they overtake the French to become the world's #1 nuclear producer on a per capita basis

Hexane

GreatApe wrote: »

How about air to air heat pumps. These might have more chance of working or at least being a co-heat source

Martyn. Martyn? Martyn! Are you hearing this... Convergent evolution again....

GreatApe

Hexane wrote: »

Martyn. Martyn? Martyn! Are you hearing this... Convergent evolution again....

Heat pumps work I have 6 in total myself (Fridge, freezer, heat pump tumble dryer, dehumidifier, ice cream machine, and a compressor)

The problem isn't one property adding a heat pump the problem is when you try to add about 2 million at that point you need to build a new gas fired power station. Then for each 500,000 you add you need to build 1 big gas fired power station.

So it's not a scalable solution unless you are okay with some 100+ big new CCGTs being built