The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Just when I was coming round to the idea of a heat pump, as after 35 years my oil tank is nearing the end of its life, I read this. 

Hundreds of thousands to lose heat pump subsidies in Reeves’s budget plan

The move will mean restricting heat-pump subsidies so that only those receiving certain benefits will be allowed to claim them, sharply bringing down costs to the government.

Supporters of the change say that the subsidies, which can be as high as £7,500, were largely going to middle-class households that could have afforded them anyway. Energy industry experts, however, warn that by taking the support away ministers will slow the transition from gas boilers to more expensive but cleaner heat pumps.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/13/hundreds-of-thousands-to-lose-heat-pump-subsidies-in-reevess-budget-plan

edit: just noticed this has also been raised on the Energy thread so maybe best discussed there.

QrizB

JKenH said:

Just when I was coming round to the idea of a heat pump, as after 35 years my oil tank is nearing the end of its life, I read this. 

There's a fairly recent and mildly controversial thread on the Heat Pumps sub-board where a poster claims that he could get near-identical quotes for a heat pump, either with or without the £7.5k BUS grant.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6628652/ashp-quotes/p1

I tried local MCS-listed installers and also big energy companies. All quotes came in around £15 k, minus the £7.5 k BUS grant, leaving £7.5 k to pay.

I also tried installers not part of BUS; their quotes average around £8 k. It seems the grant benefits the installer rather than the customer.

Some of the difference will be because the BUS grant requires extra admin, but I can't see how the admin would cost £7k. So possibly there has been some price-gouging by installers, and perhaps getting rid of the grant won't make a huge change to the price the householder pays for a heat pump.

Perhaps.

Noting that you can buy a monobloc heat pump and basic controller for ~£1000 or less these days. It might not deliver the absolute best COP but the energy cost difference between a COP of 3 and a COP of 5 might only be £330 a year.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6581544/cop-diminishing-returns-on-investment/p1

JKenH

The BBC broadcast a feature on Look North tonight reporting “on the 11th of November at 7:30 at night half of the UK electricity was generated by wind powering 22 million homes”

I was surprised that I had not heard this story before as indeed it is quite a landmark so I looked for alternative sources. I couldn’t find any but I did find these:

RENEWSBIZ reported 

“Great Britain set a new wind power generation record on 11 November with turbines producing 22,711MW at 7:30pm, according to the National Energy System Operator.

The figure surpassed the previous 22,523MW record set on 18 December 2024.

At the time of the new peak, wind supplied 43.6% of electricity demand, delivering enough power to meet the needs of more than 22 million homes.”

https://renews.biz/105447/wind-hits-new-generation-record-in-britain/

NESO (who should know) said

“On 11 November at 7:30pm, wind generated 22,711MW of electricity to set a new maximum wind generation record. At the time, wind was providing 43.6% of Great Britain’s electricity, that’s enough to power over 22 million homes.”

https://x.com/neso_energy/status/1991144640641225075

Failure to check facts or deliberate misinformation on the part of the BBC?

I will post a link when the programme becomes available online. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002mgzy

QrizB

JKenH said:

Failure to check facts or deliberate misinformation on the part of the BBC?

Looking at Electric Insights for the 11th, it backs up the BBC.

I don't know how legible that is, but it shows 22.53GW from wind at that time, being 54.1% of demand.

I'm not claiming that Electric Insights is more accurate / reliable than NESO, but it's generally pretty good and I could understand a journalist using it as a source.

The discrepancy seems to concern the "demand" figure, since EI and NESO largely agree on the power output but disagree on what % of demand that was.

JKenH said:

I was surprised that I had not heard this story before as indeed it is quite a landmark 

It's probably worth noting that wind quite often provides more than 50% of the UK's power; later that night it was supplying 65%, according to EI. But demand had dropped by that time.

JKenH

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

Failure to check facts or deliberate misinformation on the part of the BBC?

Looking at Electric Insights for the 11th, it backs up the BBC.

I don't know how legible that is, but it shows 22.53GW from wind at that time, being 54.1% of demand.

I'm not claiming that Electric Insights is more accurate / reliable than NESO, but it's generally pretty good and I could understand a journalist using it as a source.

The discrepancy seems to concern the "demand" figure, since EI and NESO largely agree on the power output but disagree on what % of demand that was.

JKenH said:

I was surprised that I had not heard this story before as indeed it is quite a landmark 

It's probably worth noting that wind quite often provides more than 50% of the UK's power; later that night it was supplying 65%, according to EI. But demand had dropped by that time.

Fair comment. The news story should actually have been the record generation from wind. Not sure why BBC chose to suggest it was 50% of demand  at 7.30pm as from your comments that was not particularly significant. 

michaels

Thinking out loud, currently we are doing very nicely in an all electric home.  3 EVs (1 as a dedicated V2H battery), ASHP, immersion for hot water.  WE load shift as much as possible and then time shift using the battery where unavoidable with a 7 hour 6.7p tariff and the 29p day rate is only about 5% of usage.

However domestic battery prices look to be getting as low as 3k for 15kwh installed.  Should there start to be widescale take up of home and grid scale short term storage then I can see the economics that allows for much cheaper off peak electricity will be arbitraged away and suddenly being all electric will no longer be the big win it is with dual rate and storage.

Perhaps it will be time to go back to ICE and a new gas boiler while it is still allowed?!

Magnitio

michaels said:

Thinking out loud, currently we are doing very nicely in an all electric home.  3 EVs (1 as a dedicated V2H battery), ASHP, immersion for hot water.  WE load shift as much as possible and then time shift using the battery where unavoidable with a 7 hour 6.7p tariff and the 29p day rate is only about 5% of usage.

However domestic battery prices look to be getting as low as 3k for 15kwh installed.  Should there start to be widescale take up of home and grid scale short term storage then I can see the economics that allows for much cheaper off peak electricity will be arbitraged away and suddenly being all electric will no longer be the big win it is with dual rate and storage.

Perhaps it will be time to go back to ICE and a new gas boiler while it is still allowed?!

Trying some rage bait?

michaels

Magnitio said:

michaels said:

Thinking out loud, currently we are doing very nicely in an all electric home.  3 EVs (1 as a dedicated V2H battery), ASHP, immersion for hot water.  WE load shift as much as possible and then time shift using the battery where unavoidable with a 7 hour 6.7p tariff and the 29p day rate is only about 5% of usage.

However domestic battery prices look to be getting as low as 3k for 15kwh installed.  Should there start to be widescale take up of home and grid scale short term storage then I can see the economics that allows for much cheaper off peak electricity will be arbitraged away and suddenly being all electric will no longer be the big win it is with dual rate and storage.

Perhaps it will be time to go back to ICE and a new gas boiler while it is still allowed?!

Trying some rage bait?

Not really, just thinking out loud in terms of investments that might be base don 10-20 year product lifetimes that basing them on current pricing structure may be a mistake, as a result of just how far battery prices have already fallen and that with things like sodium batteries on the horizon they are likely to fall further.

Exiled_Tyke

michaels said:

Magnitio said:

michaels said:

Thinking out loud, currently we are doing very nicely in an all electric home.  3 EVs (1 as a dedicated V2H battery), ASHP, immersion for hot water.  WE load shift as much as possible and then time shift using the battery where unavoidable with a 7 hour 6.7p tariff and the 29p day rate is only about 5% of usage.

However domestic battery prices look to be getting as low as 3k for 15kwh installed.  Should there start to be widescale take up of home and grid scale short term storage then I can see the economics that allows for much cheaper off peak electricity will be arbitraged away and suddenly being all electric will no longer be the big win it is with dual rate and storage.

Perhaps it will be time to go back to ICE and a new gas boiler while it is still allowed?!

Trying some rage bait?

Not really, just thinking out loud in terms of investments that might be base don 10-20 year product lifetimes that basing them on current pricing structure may be a mistake, as a result of just how far battery prices have already fallen and that with things like sodium batteries on the horizon they are likely to fall further.

I'm not sure that this will be a problem for quite some time (but I may of course be very wrong on this).  Many consumers either can't afford to invest in domestic battery storage OR have little interest (and are really missing out).  I've come across a good number of EV drivers who haven't discovered TOU tariffs until I've told them.  Of course the benefits should diminish in time as more consumers learn (even the little things like using TOU to run heavy duty appliances off-peak) but I reckon the opportunities will be around for long enough to win in this field. 

Magnitio

michaels said:

Magnitio said:

michaels said:

Thinking out loud, currently we are doing very nicely in an all electric home.  3 EVs (1 as a dedicated V2H battery), ASHP, immersion for hot water.  WE load shift as much as possible and then time shift using the battery where unavoidable with a 7 hour 6.7p tariff and the 29p day rate is only about 5% of usage.

However domestic battery prices look to be getting as low as 3k for 15kwh installed.  Should there start to be widescale take up of home and grid scale short term storage then I can see the economics that allows for much cheaper off peak electricity will be arbitraged away and suddenly being all electric will no longer be the big win it is with dual rate and storage.

Perhaps it will be time to go back to ICE and a new gas boiler while it is still allowed?!

Trying some rage bait?

Not really, just thinking out loud in terms of investments that might be base don 10-20 year product lifetimes that basing them on current pricing structure may be a mistake, as a result of just how far battery prices have already fallen and that with things like sodium batteries on the horizon they are likely to fall further.

It was your comments about going back to ICE and gas boilers that I was referring to.