The move to heat pumps

Mickey666

Martyn1981 said:

Only then can we hope to achieve sustainability.

Not while you continue to deny the bigger problem we won't.
Anyway, you're clearly a lost cause because you won't address the bigger picture.  I can't think why because I've already agreed with you that RE is very important, indeed essential - just not the SOLE issue as you seem obsessed in believing, even to the point of ignoring any evidence placed before you.  You are a classic denialist.

I'm beginning to wonder if you even understand what ecological sustainability really is.  Still, who cares about the state of the environment as long as we have RE eh?  Talk about blinkered.

Please, if you wish to respond, try responding to some of the links I've already provided.  Better still, try doing your own research and educate yourself about the issues beyond RE.   If you can't do that then don't bother.

And no answer to how many children you have?

Verdigris

Is there any chance that the greening of the electricity supply might also help by reducing relative prices of electric heat

Some newer offshore wind turbine installations already produce electricity at a lower price than gas. If we started building onshore turbines again the costs would drop further.

silverwhistle

Mickey666 said:  Not while you continue to deny the bigger problem we won't.

Could you guys get a room or another thread to discuss the issue of population growth? This thread is the full half hour on heat pumps.

Whilst you're there you might like to discuss the latest news from China of population decline and an ageing population: common to places in Italy and Europe in general and hopefully to India and Africa too in the future. In the meantime we all understand thread drift but private battles, strawman arguments, irrelevant points all get a bit tiresome for the rest of us.

Thank you.

QrizB

silverwhistle said:

Mickey666 said:  Not while you continue to deny the bigger problem we won't.

Could you guys get a room or another thread to discuss the issue of population growth? This thread is the full half hour on heat pumps.

So yes, heat pumps. Back to the original post:

Baxter100 said:

4 bed detached house. Radiators. Annual space/water heating requirements of 25,000kWh.

90% efficient gas boiler. Average cost of gas 3.80p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 3.80)/0.9 = £1056 annual bill

Replaced with 220% efficient air source electric heat pump. Average cost of electricity 14.37p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 14.47)/2.2 = £1644 annual bill

A well over 50% increase in simple running costs, not to mention the initial £5,000-£10,000 installation costs.

How is the government planning to make this work?

As Reed_Richards said upthread, his experience with a heat pump is that a more realistic COP is ~3, not the 2.2 that the OP assumed. With a COP of 3, the calculation becomes:

Replaced with 300% efficient air source electric heat pump. Average cost of electricity 14.37p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 14.47)/3 = £1206/yr

So the increase in cost is more like 15%, not 50%.

"How is the government planning to make this work?" Well that's really a question for BEIS, not me, but as a random person typing on the internet I would imagine a combination of:

1. Increased taxes on gas (and on FF generally).
2. Subsidies for installation of green domestic heating systems and for related energy efficiency measures in existing properties.
3. Increased benefit payments to reduce fuel poverty in low income households.
4. Changes to building regs to make new-builds and refurbs more energy efficient.

I'm not claiming any of these steps are new or imaginative, just things that government has done in the past, is doing now and could continue to do in the future.

In the OP's specific case, adding a penny to a kWh of gas (so 3.8p/kWh becomes 4.8p/kWh) would increase the annual cost of the gas heated house to £1333/yr and so the HP system would now be cheaper to run.

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

Mickey666 said:  Not while you continue to deny the bigger problem we won't.

Could you guys get a room or another thread to discuss the issue of population growth? This thread is the full half hour on heat pumps.

So yes, heat pumps. Back to the original post:

Baxter100 said:

4 bed detached house. Radiators. Annual space/water heating requirements of 25,000kWh.

90% efficient gas boiler. Average cost of gas 3.80p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 3.80)/0.9 = £1056 annual bill

Replaced with 220% efficient air source electric heat pump. Average cost of electricity 14.37p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 14.47)/2.2 = £1644 annual bill

A well over 50% increase in simple running costs, not to mention the initial £5,000-£10,000 installation costs.

How is the government planning to make this work?

As Reed_Richards said upthread, his experience with a heat pump is that a more realistic COP is ~3, not the 2.2 that the OP assumed. With a COP of 3, the calculation becomes:

Replaced with 300% efficient air source electric heat pump. Average cost of electricity 14.37p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 14.47)/3 = £1206/yr

So the increase in cost is more like 15%, not 50%.

"How is the government planning to make this work?" Well that's really a question for BEIS, not me, but as a random person typing on the internet I would imagine a combination of:

1. Increased taxes on gas (and on FF generally).
2. Subsidies for installation of green domestic heating systems and for related energy efficiency measures in existing properties.
3. Increased benefit payments to reduce fuel poverty in low income households.
4. Changes to building regs to make new-builds and refurbs more energy efficient.

I'm not claiming any of these steps are new or imaginative, just things that government has done in the past, is doing now and could continue to do in the future.

In the OP's specific case, adding a penny to a kWh of gas (so 3.8p/kWh becomes 4.8p/kWh) would increase the annual cost of the gas heated house to £1333/yr and so the HP system would now be cheaper to run.

Totally agree. And if we had a truer price for gas, and perhaps had less 'cheap' supply in the past from the N. Sea, we might not be in the situation where we are today, with such an emphasis on the economics, and may well already have more efficient housing stock.
We are tackling this issue very late, but at least it looks like we're on the right path.

Personally, we used a lot of heating in May, which is of course unusual, but it was all from daytime use of the small HP's, and mostly from PV. Our gas consumption for May was 10 units ~110kWh (for DHW and cooking.)

Cardew

QrizB said:

As Reed_Richards said upthread, his experience with a heat pump is that a more realistic COP is ~3, not the 2.2 that the OP assumed. With a COP of 3, the calculation becomes:

Replaced with 300% efficient air source electric heat pump. Average cost of electricity 14.37p/kWh. Annual bill = (25,000 x 14.47)/3 = £1206/yr

So the increase in cost is more like 15%, not 50%.

"How is the government planning to make this work?" Well that's really a question for BEIS, not me, but as a random person typing on the internet I would imagine a combination of:

1. Increased taxes on gas (and on FF generally).
2. Subsidies for installation of green domestic heating systems and for related energy efficiency measures in existing properties.
3. Increased benefit payments to reduce fuel poverty in low income households.
4. Changes to building regs to make new-builds and refurbs more energy efficient.

I'm not claiming any of these steps are new or imaginative, just things that government has done in the past, is doing now and could continue to do in the future.

In the OP's specific case, adding a penny to a kWh of gas (so 3.8p/kWh becomes 4.8p/kWh) would increase the annual cost of the gas heated house to £1333/yr and so the HP system would now be cheaper to run.

A couple of points on the price assumptions above.

I have just looked for the cheapest price NOW available for 25,000kWh in my area(West Midlands). The cheapest electricity only tariff is now 17.281p/kWh + 22p DSC (I currently pay 13.48p/kWh)

The cheapest gas for a dual fuel is now 3.25p/kWh + 22.26p DSC (gas only is more expensive) (I currently pay 2.37p/kWh)

So the cost for 25,000kWh electricity is £4,320 assuming a system COP of 3.0* that is £1,440.

The cost of 25,000kWh gas is £812 + £81 DSC = £893.

Note. The DSC for electricity will need to be paid for both systems so are not included.

So by my calculations using the prices above a heat pump will cost £547 more than gas, an increase of 61.2%.

* Whilst a COP of 3.0 is achievable, for many homes it is not. See:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/606818/DECC_RHPP_161214_Final_Report_v1-13.pdf

 

‘Overall conclusions

The  analysis  presented  here  demonstrates  that  median  SPFH2  values  for  ASHP  and  GSHP  in  the cropped B2 sample are around 2.65 and  2.81 respectively. Approximately two thirds of ASHP and four fifths  of GSHP  in the  cropped  B2  sample  met  the EU  criterion  for  being  considered  “renewable”.Filtering the data in alternative but equally plausible ways results in similar conclusions.’

There is the added factor that with gas CH people who are out all day can have the heating off all day, and at night,  and have it timed to come on, say, 30 mins before they return/get up.

This is not possible with an ASHP with lower water temperatures, albeit it can be set back a degree or two.

Mickey666

silverwhistle said:

Mickey666 said:  Not while you continue to deny the bigger problem we won't.

Could you guys get a room or another thread to discuss the issue of population growth? This thread is the full half hour on heat pumps.

Whilst you're there you might like to discuss the latest news from China of population decline and an ageing population: common to places in Italy and Europe in general and hopefully to India and Africa too in the future. In the meantime we all understand thread drift but private battles, strawman arguments, irrelevant points all get a bit tiresome for the rest of us.

Thank you.

Agreed.

But just since you brought it up, the latest news from China is of course driven by the political/economic requirement for continuous growth, on which our current civilisation is based and which should be quite obvious to anyone is unsustainable in the long term.  And that's precisely the bigger problem . . . everyone ignores the longer term for all manner of reasons and in this China example it's for short-term economic expediency (not to mention their wider political ambitions).  Meanwhile we continue our global destruction of biodiversity and habitat loss, etc, which RE alone will do nothing to combat.

But anyway,  carry on.

Reed_Richards

Cardew said:
* Whilst a COP of 3.0 is achievable, for many homes it is not.....

...was not.  @Cardew is quoting a report published in March 2017.  Hopefully in the intervening period heat pumps have got a little bit more efficient and installers have got a bit better at doing their job.  I get my RHI payments on the basis of a SCoP of 3.05; I have no idea if this is actually being achieved.

Reed_Richards

Cardew said:There is the added factor that with gas CH people who are out all day can have the heating off all day, and at night,  and have it timed to come on, say, 30 mins before they return/get up.

Or they can use a heating controller like the one I have, a Drayton Wiser, which has a "comfort mode".  This will take the house to the set temperature by the required time by learning how long it takes.  You can use that with any form of heating, including an ASHP as I do.  I don't think this is a hard-to-find control feature these days.    

QrizB

Cardew said:

A couple of points on the price assumptions above.

I have just looked for the cheapest price NOW available for 25,000kWh in my area(West Midlands). The cheapest electricity only tariff is now 17.281p/kWh + 22p DSC (I currently pay 13.48p/kWh)

So the cost for 25,000kWh electricity is £4,320 assuming a system COP of 3.0* that is £1,440.

That's shocking. Honestly I didn't realise the West Midlands were so expensive.

Here in the Southern region, I'm offered Symbio "Low Fair and Green Variable SE02 v20" at 12.448p/kWh with a 10ppd SC.

The equivalent cost on that tariff would be £1037 pa.

The cost of 25,000kWh gas is £812 + £81 DSC = £893.

You need to divide by 0.9 to allow for the efficiency of the boiler, so the number is more like £992.