Gas or Ashp

Apodemus

chris1973 said:

We have the greenest Electricity in history. Unfortunately we also have the highest Electricity prices in History too.

A friend of mine recently paid 69p per litre for a bulk delivery of heating oil, that is around 6.9p per kwh, which even with the efficiency losses from an average boiler is still far cheaper than mains Gas at just over 10p. I never thought I would see the day, where oil heating was significantly cheaper to run than Gas!.

That just shows how unpredictable the times we currently live in are, and I certainly wouldn't want to be taking guesses on how things are going to pan out in the future, especially if that prediction was followed by some kind of financial investment.

Germany are currently attempting to backtrack on their banning of the sale of ICE Cars by 2035, I suspect the trend will eventually spread to everywhere, when people finally wake up to the fact that Net Zero will be about as achievable as China's zero covid policy. When the penny finally drops I suspect there will be all sorts of backtracking including to looking at postponing the ban on the fitting of Gas boilers too. But like I say, unpredictable.

Not sure if its possible to fit a small gas boiler in conjunction with a ASHP, personally that would be one option I would be looking at.

I'm not sure about backtracking but at present we really don't seem to have a credible plan for generating (or even for distributing)  sufficient green electricity to cover existing use + all domestic vehicle use + the majority of domestic heating, on a cold, calm winter's day like today.

Scot_39

Wind on Tuesday at one point was generating 1.3 GW -  from 28 GW.

As it was dark - c10pm  solar = 0GW.

I wish I was convinced we had a plan to cope for those sub 5% days - because at the moment - its gas.

And the more conventional - like coal and nuclear we lose - I wonder if we might even need to build more gas too.

The press is always relaying with glee the highs - it seldom focuses on the real problem - for energy security - what are we doing about the lows.

Take Core Nuclear plans - current dates as of yesterday's extension

When Hinkley C comes on stream at 3.2 GW - June 2027 - we will have - even after today's extension - lost upto 4.7GW core since 2022 - with another 2.4 GW planned for the following year in 28.  Thats overall upto a net 3.9GW deficit.

Even if Sizewell goes faster than Hinkley - it's still several years beyond that - online estimates vary 2034-36 on a quick google - so 6-8 years later to fill 3.2 GW of that 3.9GW gap.

And the only other reactor - due to go 2035 - so need to add another upto 1.2GW loss - so even after Sizewell - upto 1.9GW down.

The goals to migrate over 20 million homes from gas to electric heating - say ave c10 kW ASHP - and 35m cars and LGV (small vans) ICE to BEV - has been accelerating of late - even at 7kW charging. Just add to the grids coming problems.

 

matelodave

you are more optimistic than I am.

I'd like to be proved wrong but I reckon we'll be lucky to see anything from Sizewell until nearly 2030 at the earliest and you can add another eight to ten years for Hinckley. 

Scot_39

matelodave said:

you are more optimistic than I am.

I'd like to be proved wrong but I reckon we'll be lucky to see anything from Sizewell until nearly 2030 at the earliest and you can add another eight to ten years for Hinckley. 

Other way round.

Hinkley is 1st.

Dates from consensus of google for Sizewell, it was only finally  approved Nov 22.

June 27 was from EDF update on their site.

ballisticbrian

Don't often post links but, Antony Antoniou (@luxurypropertyexpert) | TikTok

The view of someone whose dealt with a lot of end users of heat pumps as opposed to someone who leans over your fence and says "it's like free energy" when they can't remember what their bills are.

Reed_Richards

I have a heat pump and I am perfectly happy with it, but this TikTok guy thinks I am in a minority.  If heat pumps are properly installed and then work as specified then they should be an option that is just as workable as a boiler running on mains gas or LPG or oil.  You can do the sums to work out which option has the lowest running costs, at present it seems to be LPG, but the situation could change.  Or you might think that the specifications of ASHPs are "fiddled"; as the mileage figures for some diesel cars were "fiddled" a few years ago.  I was promised an average efficiency for heating of just over 300% and comparing my running electricity usage with my previous oil usage then I am certainly achieving something near what I was promised.   

matelodave

I agree with R_R, I've had a heatpump for around 13 years, so it was installed before the heatpump bandwagon started rolling and I've been more than happy with it over that period, even when the temperature has plummeted down to -14. Also, for most of that time I managed to get excellent cheap deals on my leccy and so the cost of running it was not much higher than gas (although five of the companies did go bust over the period). Now that leccy is really expensive, its not quite such a good proposition but there's nothing wrong with its performance or efficiency - its just the current cost of electricity that makes it a less attractive at the moment when compared with other fuels.

What I can say is that they do need to set up properly and understood by the user.  I guess that a lot of dissatisfaction is caused by poor system design, poor  installation, poor commissioning and lack of understanding of how to operate it by the customer.

Many units were installed by councils/housing association who got grants but didn't really know what they were doing and in a lot of cases just changed the boiler for a heatpump without upgrading the system and imposed them on people who wouldn't or couldn't understand how to operate them properly.

I dont think that happens as much anymore but unless customers are invested in the concept of a heatpump like a few on here who have taken the time to learn and understand how their systems work and how to get the best out of them there will still be a lot of dissatisfaction.

TBH there are two camps, those who are for them and those who are against and very few in the middle who have a reasonably balanced outlook. They do do what it says on the tin if they are installed set up and operated correctly but they arent generally cheaper to run than mains gas or oil, dunno about LPG.

As I've said before, if mains gas was available where I live then I'd have a gas system but as far as I'm concerned I'd rather have a heatpump than than storage heating, oil, lpg or biomass. It will get replaced with a heatpump when it dies.

I should also think that a modern heatpump is going to be more efficient and easier to control than mine which, even though it's 13 years old, probably manages an SCOP of around three. It did take me the first winter and half of the second winter before I understood how to operate it effectively and efficiently and got it tweaked to my satisfaction. Our energy bill is about the same as anyone else who has gas heating etc and we are at home all day and the system runs virtually continuously(overnight as well) between October  and March

brewerdave

matelodave said:

What I can say is that they do need to set up properly and understood by the user.  I guess that a lot of dissatisfaction is caused by poor system design, poor  installation, poor commissioning and lack of understanding of how to operate it by the customer.

Many units were installed by councils/housing association who got grants but didn't really know what they were doing and in a lot of cases just changed the boiler for a heatpump without upgrading the system and imposed them on people who wouldn't or couldn't understand how to operate them properly.

And that will only get worse over the next 10-15 years. Most (if not all) houses pre 2010 require quite major investment in insulation ,pipework and radiators as well as the blessed heat pump ,but my strong suspicion is that ,encouraged by the Government, all sorts of "installers" are going to appear ,who will only be concerned with banging the heat pump in, in place of a knackered gas boiler, resulting in huge numbers of "misselling" complaints.

matelodave

I installed my system without a grant in 2010, however, after  nigh on four years (April 2014)  the RHI was introduced and I did get quarterly RHI payments totalling around £5k over seven years which just about covered the price difference between a completely new oil installation (tank, boiler etc) and the heat pump.

Overall I'm more than happy with my decision to be a bit of a pioneer and even if I hadn't had the RHI I reckon I've benefited from having it overall. Its only in the last year that running costs have increased dramatically but thats mainly due to not getting highly advantageous cheap leccy over the past eleven years or so. Our last energy company failure was Symbio in 2021 and even then we managed to get a fixed deal which kept us going until the EPG rates. Hopefully energy cost will come down a bit before next winter.