Going all electric?

Woodstok2000

wrf12345 said:

Low users pay much more per unit rate for gas because of the s/c and efficiency of old gas boilers is very low, so probably going to be more like twice the unit rate than four times. Cheap electric plug-in radiators will cost a fraction of a new gas boiler (even more so if in London et al) so you can make a case for doing this, even more so if you spend the money saved on improved windows/insulation.

On the other hand, lots of green grants rely on replacing the gas system which will no longer be there and house value may be affected.

Past costs are irrelevant here, you need to compare the future costs so with a new efficient boiler it will almost certainly be 85-90% efficient and your unit costs will be in the 3-4x range 

With the unit usage noted in OP original post they'll make back the cost of a boiler in a couple of years, and thats without taking into account the lowered house value with electric heating.

Bigphil1474

I would contemplate going all electric if I had solar power with battery storage, and would probably go down the heat pump route. Not looked in detail. The electric wall panel heaters look expensive, but with solar, that would be offset. Having said that, your gas usage is ultra low, so not sure what you are saving. Might as well just buy some plug in oil radiators and have an open fire in the living room?

lohr500

Bigphil1474 said:

I would contemplate going all electric if I had solar power with battery storage, and would probably go down the heat pump route. Not looked in detail. The electric wall panel heaters look expensive, but with solar, that would be offset. Having said that, your gas usage is ultra low, so not sure what you are saving. Might as well just buy some plug in oil radiators and have an open fire in the living room?

I'm no expert but does solar production drop off significantly in the winter months? Which is when you are most likely to have the highest demand on your electric heating.

Stubod

Would seem crazy to go from gas to electric panel heaters, (unless money is really no object). If you are set on electric, then E7 with modern Quantum heaters would be a better choice, but the radiators are expensive at around £1k each for the larger ones, but they seem to work really well.

I would avoid Heat pumps as everybody I know who has them has had to install secondary heating to maintain a reasonable temperature when the weather turns really cold.

Everybody I know that has installed solar really rate it. NB Solar wont help much with heating, but will give you a few months of "free electric" in the summer to help compensate for your higher winter usage.

Alnat1

Stubod said:

I would avoid Heat pumps as everybody I know who has them has had to install secondary heating to maintain a reasonable temperature when the weather turns really cold.

Everybody I know that has installed solar really rate it. NB Solar wont help much with heating, but will give you a few months of "free electric" in the summer to help compensate for your higher winter usage.

I love my heat pump, it's kept us toasty 24/7 through this cold spell. Average electricity cost over the last 7 days is £3.94 and that's for heating, hot water and all other household use. Actually, it's not really a cost as we're still working our way down the credit from exporting solar in summer. 

tim_p

lohr500 said:

Bigphil1474 said:

I would contemplate going all electric if I had solar power with battery storage, and would probably go down the heat pump route. Not looked in detail. The electric wall panel heaters look expensive, but with solar, that would be offset. Having said that, your gas usage is ultra low, so not sure what you are saving. Might as well just buy some plug in oil radiators and have an open fire in the living room?

I'm no expert but does solar production drop off significantly in the winter months? Which is when you are most likely to have the highest demand on your electric heating.

Solar generation drop off massively in winter, down, often to below 100kWh monthly total during Nov/Dec/Jan from well above 600kWh in May/Jun/Jul. 

Image is from a 4kWp system with only 4x250w panels facing nearly south, the rest face E&W, so far from ideal but typical. On very bad days you can be lucky to get over 200wH of generation. Image shows this year has been a particularly good one, even the dark months compared to the previous year (white columns)

snowqueen555

It also takes several years if not 10+ to recoup the cost of solar panel installation. If you buy a new build with it included, then that's another argument. However, they usually install the bare minimum.

mta999

I did exactly that - I got rid of my gas boiler but what I did was install a heat pump via Octopus

I am now all electric and very happy with it

PS octopus also replaced all the radiators with brand new ones included in the price and also replaced the hot water cylinder with a brand new one

Scot_39

lohr500 said:

Bigphil1474 said:

I would contemplate going all electric if I had solar power with battery storage, and would probably go down the heat pump route. Not looked in detail. The electric wall panel heaters look expensive, but with solar, that would be offset. Having said that, your gas usage is ultra low, so not sure what you are saving. Might as well just buy some plug in oil radiators and have an open fire in the living room?

I'm no expert but does solar production drop off significantly in the winter months? Which is when you are most likely to have the highest demand on your electric heating.

But you hopefully export excess on SEG (local area capacity permitting) - at currently upto 15p/kWh - in summer - with a suitable battery array you might be able to time it to get more at peak evening demand on one of the dynamic rates - and bank it to offset / pay for import / winter bills.  

Its not a day by day balancing equation - its an annual one - whilst SEG survives.  

No one knows what the future demand vs generation profile is going to look like 24/7 winter and summer.  At the moment the UK has a glut on sunny breezy summer days - but a deficit - so reliant on interconnects in winter - more so when wind and solar both "fails" to generate much in winter.  And that was real problem for UK energy prices - when in 2022 Frances nuclear capacity was over 25% below normal (one month 60% below normal)  - and prices across Europe far higher as a result.

sarahTT

Thanks for all the input, much food for thought. I should stress that we're not thinking of jumping all electric any time soon now and also that there's an expectation that electricity will get more plentiful and cheaper in the years to come. We certainly want to get away from the "wet" system as far as possible though we still would have a hot-water tank in the airing cupboard (as we have today).

As to the house losing some value, that's entirely possible (though again dependent on future energy pricing). However for us it's not that much of a problem as this is our mortgage-free forever home and the master of the spreadsheets has never put anything re the house or its value into his various calculations.

Again thanks, will show all this to hubby and may come back with further queries.