Energy news in general

Scot_39

If net zero and heat pumps in particular had popular support they arguably wouldn't need grants.

All grants do in any case all too often is set a defacto minimum price.

How are prices going to fall if installers know folk are getting 7.5k free cash - let alone even more ?

In simple terms if a new gas boiler is £2.5k installed, the grant means the defacto price for ashp can be £10k.

The grant was always going to be temporary and limited.

Just like the BEV discount before it.  And look at EU import tariffs on BEVs - deliberately designed to keep market prices high.  Hardly encouraging take up by the average worker. 

If you own a home that has space for a heat pump without noise annoying neighbours - e.g. often larger semi or detached - you can afford to pay for your own heatpump out of income or unearned equity.

Time UK households and businesses were set free from the shackles of our woeful energy strategy and the increasingly punitive net zero costs we face on a daily basis.

Like last years £1bn - £30 per connection and growing exponentially - subsidy to renewables not to generate.  On top of in cap wholesale costs  c£30 CfD costs - over 1p/kWh wholesale ekectric - at times   On top of financing £10-£15bn pa spending in new grid costs.
Remember it is those network costs that have seen electric standing charges double to date - with more forecast by Ofgem to come.

Perhaps then real GDP growth - GDP per capita might be achieved.

TroubledTarts

Cheap and known wins every time until banned.

(And we do have a heat pump but understand lack of knowledge and resistance)

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

In simple terms if a new gas boiler is £2.5k installed, the grant means the defacto price for ashp can be £10k.

Here's a post of mine from four years ago:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78540761/#Comment_78540761

You can buy an 11kW Mitsubishi Ecodan for around £5k, vs. a 15kW Worcester Greenstar Ri for £840. The difference in cost of the hardware is about £4k. So why can you get a gas boiler supplied and installed for £2k but a heat pump is £15k?

At the time, heat pumps qualified for RHI which was worth £10k or more over seven years.

What isn't included in my comparison is all the other upgrades that usually come with a heat pump; bigger radiators, new HW tank, and so on. There are forum members who have self-installed heat pumps without any of those upgrades and who still get acceptable performance (obviously this won't be true for everyone). And we see forum members being told that their HP quotes include upgrading/replacing "up to a certain number" of radiators, without being more spet; that's a couple of £k of non-specific coat that could be spent or could be profit for the installer.

You saw the same with solar PV and the FIT. When the FIT was generous, system prices remained high (and lots were installed). When it was cut, many installers went out of business and most of the remaining ones managed to slash their prices to match what the FIT would support. (Some of them instead resorted to creative accounting, assuming that electricity prices would outstrip general inflation for the next 20 years. It would be interesting to revisit some of those forecasts from a decade ago and see how they compare to what really happened.)

Scot_39

TroubledTarts said:

Cheap and known wins every time until banned.

(And we do have a heat pump but understand lack of knowledge and resistance)

Well that puts you in a tiny minority.  And that despite the 7.5k grant - and free loan top up in Scotland.

And it's arrogant in the extreme for Greens  to assume it's through a lack of knowledge - it smacks of green elitism - a form of eco shaming - evudent for years in certain quarters - at its very worst.

You don't have to be a climate denier to see that notveverything is as green as it appears.  
A bit like the above post on Drax -  the plant sees regular Green protests - but still receives that c£900m in subsidy.

Not everyone who has had ASHP fitred are happy with them.

And being from a city where 40% of homes are flats in a nation where iirc  30% are flats or cramped terraces - and so cannot easily adopt the technology - they really are not the universal solution some appear to think they are.

Unlike serious Greens who acknowledge alternatives are needed - e.g. read Harvie et als staretegy for decarbonising Scotlands homes and govt buildings.  And some of the working driving it.
A dcument and more so open and some said underestimated duscussion about likeky costs that helped bring down Bute House agreement and SNP Scottish Green power sharing.

Doc_N

I had a new gas boiler fitted last year, but only after a lot of thought and long discussions with an installer who fits both boilers and heat pumps, and knows his stuff. We had to reach the conclusion, unfortunately, that now is not the time for a heat pump - at least not in this house. And it was built only 20 years ago with energy efficiency very much in mind, and with full underfloor heating.

The problem is that we’d need more than one heat pump to heat the place, because one wouldn’t be sufficient. Newer, better heat pumps are just around the corner with a 60 degree heat output, and they should be a game changer. Lower prices will also be a game changer. And if there are tax or other changes making gas more expensive and electricity cheaper (likely, I suspect) that will tip the balance still further. In five, maybe three, years time heat pumps will, I suspect, become the norm.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

And being from a city where 40% of homes are flats in a nation where iirc  30% are flats or cramped terraces - and so cannot easily adopt the technology - they really are not the universal solution some appear to think they are.

There are heat pump options for flats and cramped terraces. Look at photos of pretty much any far east apartment block.

Here's an example. Lots of heat pumps.

Scot_39

Or are they air conditioners.

Certainly come across those per room sort of external wall mounted units in USA, S Africa when spent minths working their and elsewhere in past  

Abd if you've ever ben near them - as they age - they have - or at least some can - become increasingly noisy.

Actually notably vibrating the walls so you can feel it.

And why they will be resisted by freeholders and residents alike.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

Or are they air conditioners

Tomayto, tomato. Air conditioners are heat pumps.

Scot_39

OK what I meant was they are not full home wet ashp that most think of when think ashp.

And air to air don't get grant iirc.

Which is probably why you could fit maybe 4 or 5 to cover a full house for the price of one wet ashp.  With supply starting sub £1000 in HHR NSH type territory.  IF I remember the few posts here from  those fitting them. 

But iirc they need planning permission as can cool - true ???

wrf12345

Just been informed that money for the warm homes:local grant has not been received/confirmed by the council yet even though they were registered way back and it was supposed to start in April, that could possibly bag both solar and heat pump for free for lower end of the income scale and D or worse EPC. Energy agents have been prohibited from coercing extra money out of potential customers this time round, unlike in the Flex scheme where they were keen to take 5k off me for solar/heat pump install - I suppose almost cheap in the overall scheme of things but I can't make the payback work as the heat pump would be chuddering through excess kwh. Anyway, registered with both an energy agent and the council so see what happens - will actually be shocked if I get any freebies out of the system. First time for everything!