Would you share your heating?

GreatApe

Would you share you heating?

30 million buildings with 30 million boilers or 30 million heat pumps seem quite inefficient

Could a system be devised whereby the energy company owns and operates a micro distributed heating system

Something like a 15 ton hot water tank heated by 5 independent 30KW gas fired boilers (or equivalent heat pump) to feed a block of flats or row of terrace homes or even a group of semis. Distributed heat for 50-100 homes.

You go from needing 50-100 heat pumps or boilers to needing just 5
You could even have say 3 heat pumps and 2 gas boilers.
With the heat pumps working when excess electricity is available and the gas boilers doing the heating when there is limited electricity in the grid

With the energy company owning and opperating the micro distributed heating system and charging for heat units rather than gas or electric

Hexane

For whatever reason, a lot of people don't want this. People want their own heating system to be totally under their own control. If they are paying £300,000 or £500,000 or whatever for a two bed flat or a three bed terraced house, the extra few thousand for the new cost of a heat pump or gas boiler doesn't seem important. Also I think the £6-8K is the cost of retrofitting an air source heat pump into an existing wet system. Retrofitting a larger one and connecting it to multiple existing wet systems, or completely installing it afresh by ripping out existing Economy 7 electric heaters etc. and laying new pipes, would be a great deal more.

For new builds the idea of shared heat pumps might make sense, but, unless government mandated or subsidised, it would be an oddball choice that would push up costs for the early adopter individual developments, and risk putting off potential purchasers.

tori.k

Works well in the Netherlands with district heating the government sets the price so its no more than the natural gas price so doesn't cost the householder anymore then what would have spent.
You could sign me up for it.

elsien

I did once. House split into flats but heating set up so one person (not me) had control over when it went on and off. Never again.

tori.k

The modern systems using a heat/water meter, you wouldn't notice any difference then having your own gas boiler, you turn it up and down as you require, its only the source it comes from that alternative bio-fuel or incineration or ground source

pinnks

You also see "Fernwaerme" or district heating/hot water in large German cities, or you did when I lived there many years ago but it served high density housing areas in the main where the transit losses are (or were) seen as acceptable. Whether it could work sensibly and planet-friendly in the relatively low density housing in the UK is less clear.

silverwhistle

tori.k wrote: »

The modern systems using a heat/water meter,

Yes, same in Italy, some systems use a 'contaore'. Another interesting point is that centralized heating systems get turned on in autumn according to location based on a classification A to F.


A is 1 December to 15th March, E is 15th October to 15 April and F is unlimited. As an example Rome is band D, Aosta at the bottom of a U shaped valley in the Alps is an E and towns further up the valley or in the side valleys are F (Courmayeur, for example).

Andy_WSM

tori.k wrote: »

Works well in the Netherlands with district heating the government sets the price so its no more than the natural gas price.

But it wouldn't work in the UK where the Government are all about privatization and profit for their rich business mates.

We don't have any public utility providers, so there would be layers of managers and directors who would all want paying more than the prime minister - and then don't forget their annual bonuses of £millions. Then you've got the shareholders, who would expect to make a profit or drop the shares. Nothing is done in the UK for the benefit of the consumer any more!

GreatApe

tori.k wrote: »

The modern systems using a heat/water meter, you wouldn't notice any difference then having your own gas boiler, you turn it up and down as you require, its only the source it comes from that alternative bio-fuel or incineration or ground source

A shared heating system even if it was powered by gas would be better than individual gas boilers for multiple reasons

The biggest reason being that two normal boilers plus a 500 litre tank has the capacity to heat and provide the hot water to around 20 homes.

So for 20 homes you have

Options A
20 boilers
20 tanks of 150 liters

Option B
2 boilers
1 tank of 500 litres

As you can see the infrastructure cost is so much less. 18 fewer boilers and tanks = £25k less cost and also if this is a new build the labor savings would also be about another £25k. The maintenance cost is also about 1/10th as much since 1/10th as many boilers to go wrong etc

The overall cost would also be lower because we pay not just for natural gas but the whole infrastructure. We may pay 3.5p/kWh for gas but a typical home probably also pays 2p/kWh in depreciation and maintenance costs (just like cars per mile cost is more than just the fuel) and the depreciation and maintenance of this shared system might be 1/10th


The cost of connection also need not be high
I own a terrace house and that street once upon a time had shared heating
I know this as my property still has its insulated street heating pipe and so do some of the neighbors (others have taken them out). They just ran a 2 inch insulated pipe through the terrace buildings very cheap.

This in fact could be a way of doing it
Energy companies offer a host home cheap heating
They install a boiler and a tank
And feed the heat from that to not one property but perhaps ten homes to the right and the left so on total 21 homes are heated by the one boiler/tank

In future this setup could be converted to green wind power by using the tanks immersion heater when there is excess wind. Or a heat pump could be added. One heat pump rather than 21 would be a huge saving.

PasturesNew

the reality is that having a dedicated area for such a boiler system, plus expensive maintenance and servicing and all the other "management" stuff that goes on would work out, individually, more expensive per home than each having their own heating.

If I want a boiler in my house I have an option of spending £1k, or £3k, or £10k. Such schemes tend to be managed/driven by "wealthier folks" and to tick all those green/eco friendly boxes on forms the cost goes up and up and up until you've got the Rolls Royce of heating systems being shared by 30 peasants... who are complaining they can't afford to heat their homes.

GreatApe

PasturesNew wrote: »

the reality is that having a dedicated area for such a boiler system, plus expensive maintenance and servicing and all the other "management" stuff that goes on would work out, individually, more expensive per home than each having their own heating.

If I want a boiler in my house I have an option of spending £1k, or £3k, or £10k. Such schemes tend to be managed/driven by "wealthier folks" and to tick all those green/eco friendly boxes on forms the cost goes up and up and up until you've got the Rolls Royce of heating systems being shared by 30 peasants... who are complaining they can't afford to heat their homes.[/QUOTE


Why do you think a shared system would cost more to repair or install

It's the exact same boilers being used. Only instead of 20 for 20 homes it's 2 for 20 homes

Instead of EDF selling you gas and electricity it would be EDF selling you electricity and hot water

If EDF get inefficient, say paying plumbers £1,000 per hour rather than £50 and having five layers of management rather than two then you can switch to another company who runs their affiars more efficiently. Or it can be a regulated monopoly like national grid so the regulator would set per unit prices.