Ditching gas, going electric immersion only, a wee project

QrizB

silverwhistle said:

QrizB said:

Good stuff Solarchaser!

On a *much* smaller scale, I'm wondering if putting one of these in the kitchen and heating it with Go on a timeswitch will make sense this winter, both for the obvious reason and to provide some background heating

Why not use the oven if you have an electric one? It probably comes with its own timeswitch, although I've never used mine.

Sadly (for this purpose,at least), my oven is gas.

Solarchaser said:

I like the lateral thinking @QrizB clever solution to two issues imo 👍

Thanks, the idea's one thing but the practice could be something else!

silverwhistle

I shall keep an eye on this thread although for now my old boiler fires up when I test it every autumn and I've only been using <1500 kWh a year, for occasional heating and hot water. My import of electricity on Go was around 1800 last year although my EV mileage was uncharacteristically low. Installing a heat pump in these circumstances seems a very expensive option at the moment, which is why Solarchaser's solution piqued my interest.

What this thread has highlighted is how high some people's consumption is, and how lucky I am to have PV, a wood burner and no young dependents! Admittedly my labour for scrounging and prepping wood is priced at zero, but I don't pay for the gym either.

I've locked in Go for another year and my 6p gas will see me through the winter, but my crystal ball for any further into the future is looking very hazy. I'm trying to recall what new wind farms will be coming on-stream next year and whether they'll have any or enough impact for Agile to start being interesting again.

In the meantime I'm off to work out how my oven timer works: I don't have a radiator in the kitchen even if I put the gas on! ;-)

QrizB

silverwhistle said:

I've locked in Go for another year and my 6p gas will see me through the winter, but my crystal ball for any further into the future is looking very hazy. I'm trying to recall what new wind farms will be coming on-stream next year and whether they'll have any or enough impact for Agile to start being interesting again.

The LCCC dashboard for CfD-backed wind farms (etc) is here:

https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dashboards/cfd

The "Portfolio Dashboard" shows what is expected to come on-line and when (although it hasn't yet been updated to include AR4). Page 2 of the dashboard shows 2060MW of capacity coming on line in 2023.

It'll help but those numbers would have to be 5x as big to have a significant impact on prices.

michaels

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

I've locked in Go for another year and my 6p gas will see me through the winter, but my crystal ball for any further into the future is looking very hazy. I'm trying to recall what new wind farms will be coming on-stream next year and whether they'll have any or enough impact for Agile to start being interesting again.

The LCCC dashboard for CfD-backed wind farms (etc) is here:

https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dashboards/cfd

The "Portfolio Dashboard" shows what is expected to come on-line and when (although it hasn't yet been updated to include AR4). Page 2 of the dashboard shows 2060MW of capacity coming on line in 2023.

It'll help but those numbers would have to be 5x as big to have a significant impact on prices.

I think someone posted a chart a while back that sort of suggested that even if gas prices remain high, more RE coming on stream and HPC should see average prices fall back to only 2 times the old normal rather than the current 5 to 6 times - then again with all the inter-connectors I guess electricity pries will still tend to be the same across Europe so even if we are sorted if European prices remain driven by gas then so will ours...

70sbudgie

michaels said:

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

I've locked in Go for another year and my 6p gas will see me through the winter, but my crystal ball for any further into the future is looking very hazy. I'm trying to recall what new wind farms will be coming on-stream next year and whether they'll have any or enough impact for Agile to start being interesting again.

The LCCC dashboard for CfD-backed wind farms (etc) is here:

https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dashboards/cfd

The "Portfolio Dashboard" shows what is expected to come on-line and when (although it hasn't yet been updated to include AR4). Page 2 of the dashboard shows 2060MW of capacity coming on line in 2023.

It'll help but those numbers would have to be 5x as big to have a significant impact on prices.

I think someone posted a chart a while back that sort of suggested that even if gas prices remain high, more RE coming on stream and HPC should see average prices fall back to only 2 times the old normal rather than the current 5 to 6 times - then again with all the inter-connectors I guess electricity pries will still tend to be the same across Europe so even if we are sorted if European prices remain driven by gas then so will ours...

I've only recently learned that the way interconnectors earn is when the markets at either end differ in price. So high (gas driven) electricity prices on the continent would mean that we export more. But I guess the main thing that prevents the interconnectors from have too significant an effect on the UK prices will be the limit of their capacity. I believe we have most capacity links with the French market - 3GW? Which is about 10% of current UK demand (depending on time of day and season).

Martyn1981

70sbudgie said:

michaels said:

QrizB said:

silverwhistle said:

I've locked in Go for another year and my 6p gas will see me through the winter, but my crystal ball for any further into the future is looking very hazy. I'm trying to recall what new wind farms will be coming on-stream next year and whether they'll have any or enough impact for Agile to start being interesting again.

The LCCC dashboard for CfD-backed wind farms (etc) is here:

https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dashboards/cfd

The "Portfolio Dashboard" shows what is expected to come on-line and when (although it hasn't yet been updated to include AR4). Page 2 of the dashboard shows 2060MW of capacity coming on line in 2023.

It'll help but those numbers would have to be 5x as big to have a significant impact on prices.

I think someone posted a chart a while back that sort of suggested that even if gas prices remain high, more RE coming on stream and HPC should see average prices fall back to only 2 times the old normal rather than the current 5 to 6 times - then again with all the inter-connectors I guess electricity pries will still tend to be the same across Europe so even if we are sorted if European prices remain driven by gas then so will ours...

I've only recently learned that the way interconnectors earn is when the markets at either end differ in price. So high (gas driven) electricity prices on the continent would mean that we export more. But I guess the main thing that prevents the interconnectors from have too significant an effect on the UK prices will be the limit of their capacity. I believe we have most capacity links with the French market - 3GW? Which is about 10% of current UK demand (depending on time of day and season).

Yep, we've got 3GW to France, with another 1GW coming on line this year, lifting us from a current total of 7.4GW to 8.4GW.

Then there's another 7.5GW (6 projects) scheduled to come on line in 2023-2025, taking us to 15.9GW. I think there's a rough target of 20-25GW for 2030+.

silverwhistle

michaels said:

 more RE coming on stream and HPC should see average prices fall back to only 2 times the old normal rather than the current 5 to 6 times - then again...

Yes, but the complication in all this is average over what period? Currently Octopus with GO are offering 7.5p for four hours at night, and although they may be making a loss at times they obviously don't want to lose their customer base who are active in  demand smoothing, which in the future is going to be even more important.

Now Octopus' model has been rather mucked up by all the failures and being given customers for which they had not planned, so maybe that also needs to work through.

A government who actually governed instead of gurned might also effect an improvement but perhaps best not to rely on that..

michaels

What is the current go rates for new customers?

QrizB

michaels said:

What is the current go rates for new customers?

7.5p/40p per kWh plus the same standing charge as Flexible, I think.

Freepost

Hi, I have spent many hours thinking about your system, and the idea that you will be able to charge up/heat the tank of 500l in a three to four hour window that will be sufficent to heat your home for the rest of the day in the middle of winter, is a concern. I'm most certainly not saying it won't work, I'm not qualified to say that but if it doesn't is it future proofed to the extent that you could add a system boiler to the tank. I know this isn't something you want to do but for argument's sake would it be easy to add since you don't have a spare coil in the tank but perhaps it could work as a direct connection to the a boiler.

You seem to have a number of connections that are unused;

 - Hot Drawoff

 - Dry Stat Pocket (top)

 - 7bar T&P

 - Cold Feed + Dip Pipe

 - Secondry Return (end)

 - 2 x Dry Stat Pocket (side)

Although I guess a couple of these connections are used to pump the water around the inside of the tank, a destrat circulating pump I think you called it (see I was paying attention earlier;-)). What about the water in the two tanks are they connected together? I assume you also have an expansion tank?

It would be interesting to know more details of the system. Also thermal store or heatbank, I don't really understand these other than they are really quite expensive in comparison to the Tempest Tanks from Telford, is there a big difference in the termal properties of your system and theirs?

Thanks

F.