How will old houses be heated in 20 years time?

spot1034

One thing I think is certain. Any timetables for change laid out in the next few years are likely to slip. How far behind the initial schedule is the plan to fit smart meters? And that's a relatively straightforward job taking less than a couple of hours, involving no great disruption to the householder with no bill being sent for the work. Here we're talking in many cases about major work on a property and a very significant cost, and possibly a resulting increase in energy bills and  ongoing servicing costs. I'm in my 60s and hope I might be around for a couple of decades yet, but I really don't expect to see this huge national project to be anywhere near complete in my lifetime. In fact, given the arguments that are likely to erupt when the full implications are realised, I wouldn't be surprised if I don't see too much change at all!

brewerdave

spot1034 said:

One thing I think is certain. Any timetables for change laid out in the next few years are likely to slip. How far behind the initial schedule is the plan to fit smart meters? And that's a relatively straightforward job taking less than a couple of hours, involving no great disruption to the householder with no bill being sent for the work. Here we're talking in many cases about major work on a property and a very significant cost, and possibly a resulting increase in energy bills and  ongoing servicing costs. I'm in my 60s and hope I might be around for a couple of decades yet, but I really don't expect to see this huge national project to be anywhere near complete in my lifetime. In fact, given the arguments that are likely to erupt when the full implications are realised, I wouldn't be surprised if I don't see too much change at all!

Have to agree with you. I've just passed 70 and don't think I'll see my gas boiler vanish in my lifetime - the cost implications are horrendous and covid will put the UK back at least 10 years !!

RobM99

Hydrogen instead of gas, eh? And where will the hydrogen come from?

Mouldymeat3

Glancing at GB Fuel type power generation production    from time to time may help in your discussion.

Ectophile

RobM99 said:

Hydrogen instead of gas, eh? And where will the hydrogen come from?

Tap water and spare electricity.  At the moment, most of our electricity comes from gas fired power stations, which can be turned on and off as required.

Get rid of them, and we're left with nuclear and wind.  Nuclear runs 24 hours a day, and wind generates plenty of electricity whenever it's windy.  If we build enough over-capacity to handle days when it isn't very windy, we're going to have loads of spare electricity to get rid of when it is windy.

You can turn off wind turbines, but it makes more sense to dunk some electrodes into a tank of water and generate hydrogen.  It also gives you oxygen, which you can sell off.

Gerry1

RobM99 said:

Hydrogen instead of gas, eh? And where will the hydrogen come from?

https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/hydrogen-production/energy-briefing-green-hydrogen.pdf

A._Badger

Ectophile said:

RobM99 said:

Hydrogen instead of gas, eh? And where will the hydrogen come from?

Tap water and spare electricity.  At the moment, most of our electricity comes from gas fired power stations, which can be turned on and off as required.

Get rid of them, and we're left with nuclear and wind.  Nuclear runs 24 hours a day, and wind generates plenty of electricity whenever it's windy.  If we build enough over-capacity to handle days when it isn't very windy, we're going to have loads of spare electricity to get rid of when it is windy.

You can turn off wind turbines, but it makes more sense to dunk some electrodes into a tank of water and generate hydrogen.  It also gives you oxygen, which you can sell off.

Even if you were right (and most of the estimates I've seen suggest that you are not) and  it was even physically possible to build sufficient windmills to generate the electricity demanded by this lemming-like rush to 'Green' energy, there isn't a hope in Hades that we will be able either to build or finance enough nuclear capacity to balance demand when the wind doesn't blow.. It's simply not going to happen and the sooner our ridiculous politicians realise it the sooner we'll stand some chance of keeping the lights on. 

Gerry1

A._Badger said:

there isn't a hope in Hades that we will be able either to build or finance enough nuclear capacity to balance demand when the wind doesn't blow.. It's simply not going to happen and the sooner our ridiculous politicians realise it the sooner we'll stand some chance of keeping the lights on. 

They have realised.  'Demand Side Response' is their answer.

In Plain English, DSR means that you'll have to use electricity when it suits the industry, not when you want to use it.  If surge pricing doesn't achieve this, it will be enforced via smart meters, which have several built in facilities including Load Limiting and Load Shedding to achieve this.

jefaz07

Ectophile said:

You'd bankrupt yourself trying to pay the bills for an electric combi boiler.

I think the only viable choices are going to be ASHP, GSHP (ground source heat pump, for people with a big enough garden), or night storage heaters.

Bear in mind that an ASHP is intended to be run 24 hours a day.  So when you say it takes a long time to heat up your room with radiators turned down, that's perfectly normal.  Bigger radiators would also help.

Plus people are going to have to spend money improving the insulation in their homes.  The UK housing stock is terrible in that respect compared with other countries in Northern Europe.

Edit: there's also talk of switching over to hydrogen in place of natural gas.  That would be a big job converting appliances over, but we've done it before with the switch from town gas to natural gas.

It’s happening! Not just talk. The blend is only 20% currently. With this blend appliances don’t need to be changed. 

I agree though, as it gets wider spread there will be significant challenges. 

Mickey666

A._Badger said:

Personally, I hope that before 20 years have passed people will have woken up to the political trojan horse that is 'Green' dogma.
Absent which, as the owner of a house that is over 400 years old, I will just have to stuff a bit more newspaper into the cracks in the walls and get back to burning witches. Always assuming we're still allowed to have newspapers, of course. 

Ditto.  For all my SG draughty windows and relatively poor insulation, I reckon my house is a lot greener than most modern breeding boxes.  For a start it is mostly built from sustainable resource (oak frame, wattle&daub, lime mortar, etc) so its embedded energy has caused almost zero environmental effects, and even tough I have mains gas, my bills are comparable to friends in more contemporary houses because I don't even try to heat all rooms to 22C all year round and my afternoon/evening heating is largely derived from burning wood from my own trees.  So it's a myth that old houses are necessarily bad for the environment. 
However, I am finding that burning witches is becoming ever more problematic these days due to the more liberal modern attitudes to such things.  Shame really as it will only drive up my mains gas consumption.