Octopus Heat Pumps

thevilla

And, to state the obvious, gas will never be renewable. We're not far from 100% clean leccy; at least for short periods.

Magnitio

70sbudgie said:

https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/ has a section on regional data. If you tap on the region you're interested in (I am in the NW), you can see a breakdown of the generation and also the supplying regions. The regional data is still beta, but interesting. (Imo).

So I can see that right now, the carbon intensity in the NW is 17gCO2/kWhr, 53.8% is from wind, 36.8% is from nuclear, but only 64.3% is supplied by the NW generators, the rest is from Scotland N and S, NE England and imports.

It is possible to then look up the generation mixes in the supplying areas. It becomes a bit of a rabbit hole, but an interesting one, that I've been down more than once!

Edit to add: my point is that you can check how green your electricity is and it will be heavily impacted by which DNO area you are in, as well as the weather. I live in a pretty low carbon generation area (relative to the rest of England), so know that more often that not heat pumps would be the lower carbon option for me.

Extremely low carbon intensity today (sunny and windy), but often very high when you need the heat pump the most and it's least efficient. I assumed an average of 200g/kWh in my calculations.

I would like to stop burning gas, but there's no way I can justify to my wife that we spend £7k on something that is more expensive to run. She's also not keen on a big heat pump unit in the garden plus associated pipework, significantly reduced space in the airing cupboard and bigger radiators.

I will have to look at other ways to reduce our emissions and revisit heating solutions in a couple of years. May now have a look at a secondhand electric car now prices are reducing.

Reed_Richards

Magnitio said:
....and bigger radiators.

But they could be attractive modern white radiators, not the tired old yellowing radiators you have at the moment (perhaps).  Getting new radiators was something of a plus for my wife.  And they might not need to occupy any more wall space; none of my replacement radiators did because then were replacing basic double panel radiators.  That said, we had to add two more new ones.    

EricMears

thevilla said:

And, to state the obvious, gas will never be renewable. 

Actually,  it could be.  But only if we stop taking it out of the ground and used only methane produced by fermentation etc.

70sbudgie

EricMears said:

thevilla said:

And, to state the obvious, gas will never be renewable. 

Actually,  it could be.  But only if we stop taking it out of the ground and used only methane produced by fermentation etc.

This just gave me an image in my head of cattle and sheep with masks on for carbon capture. 

Screwdriva

Magnitio said:

I would like to stop burning gas, but there's no way I can justify to my wife that we spend £7k on something that is more expensive to run. She's also not keen on a big heat pump unit in the garden plus associated pipework, significantly reduced space in the airing cupboard and bigger radiators.

We're in the same boat. Despite reducing our annual gas consumption by ~50%, I retain some guilt about what we do still emit. Octopus recently quoted us £6K for a replacement heat pump (after BUS discount). Our electrified heating savings (if any - a big IF) would never recover this cost sadly. 

Reed_Richards

Screwdriva said:

Our electrified heating savings (if any - a big IF) would never recover this cost sadly. 

Unfortunately you cannot possibly know if this is true or not; simply that it is true at current fuel prices.

Screwdriva

Reed_Richards said:

Unfortunately you cannot possibly know if this is true or not; simply that it is true at current fuel prices.

Fortunately, that's good enough for me to make a decision about this currently. 

1961Nick

Magnitio said:

70sbudgie said:

https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/ has a section on regional data. If you tap on the region you're interested in (I am in the NW), you can see a breakdown of the generation and also the supplying regions. The regional data is still beta, but interesting. (Imo).

So I can see that right now, the carbon intensity in the NW is 17gCO2/kWhr, 53.8% is from wind, 36.8% is from nuclear, but only 64.3% is supplied by the NW generators, the rest is from Scotland N and S, NE England and imports.

It is possible to then look up the generation mixes in the supplying areas. It becomes a bit of a rabbit hole, but an interesting one, that I've been down more than once!

Edit to add: my point is that you can check how green your electricity is and it will be heavily impacted by which DNO area you are in, as well as the weather. I live in a pretty low carbon generation area (relative to the rest of England), so know that more often that not heat pumps would be the lower carbon option for me.

Extremely low carbon intensity today (sunny and windy), but often very high when you need the heat pump the most and it's least efficient. I assumed an average of 200g/kWh in my calculations.

I would like to stop burning gas, but there's no way I can justify to my wife that we spend £7k on something that is more expensive to run. She's also not keen on a big heat pump unit in the garden plus associated pipework, significantly reduced space in the airing cupboard and bigger radiators.

I will have to look at other ways to reduce our emissions and revisit heating solutions in a couple of years. May now have a look at a secondhand electric car now prices are reducing.

How about getting an air/air inverter heat pump? You'll get a much higher SCOP which will actually make it a lot cheaper to run than your gas boiler. A single unit placed in your main living area will make a reasonable dent in your gas consumption & possibly cost as little as £1200 fitted.

JKenH

I really don’t know why the government doesn’t encourage more people to use these A2A wall mounted units. I have barely used my oil fired central heating since January (just the odd very cold day). Maybe they are just perceived by the authorities as air conditioning units that add to electricity demand.