A high standing charge for gas has another consequence. A household which installs a Heat Pump will most likely also replace its gas cooker (or hob-oven combo), even if they're relatively new and functioning perfectly.
That will undermine progress towards using hydrogen instead of the current methane/propane mix.
The fewer homes with gas, the less resilient is the UK energy supply. The gas network has a very high residual energy in the system. The network would continue to operate for many hours, even if a cyber attack took out all of the country's supply-points.
The electricity grid has zero residual energy. The grid failure just before 5pm on 9th August 2019 presented an immediate threat to the entire country. If the National Grid controller on-duty hadn't sacrificed the distribution network for the east side of England, then we would have lost all electricity for the nation.
There is more to be considered when setting standing charges than just the price.
I see what you're saying but the consequences of a catastrophic grid failure are not really anything to do with domestic heating. And gas won't keep IT/comms systems running.
Actually I recently had experience of the opposite to your example. We bought a really nice, nearly new electric range from a couple who had moved into a house with no mains gas and had installed an expensive bottled propane system with proper storage and pipework plus cooker because they preferred cooking on gas!!
Given the data available on the projected price cap does anyone have a view on unit costs.
I think elec 36.5p per kw with a standing charge of 66p and gas 13p per kw and standing charge of 32p.
This gets close to Cornwall insights prediction based on average usage of 2900 elec kw and 12000 gas kw.
Thoughts?
I fear higher than the last cornwall update of £2980 for October and then increasing again in January.
Wholesale gas is higher since the last cornwall insight update so i think they will increase their estimate again to over £3000 in October and then increasing again in January unless ofgem intervene with some system changes.
These are the figures for a current ovo fixed rate offer which would be £3050.22 for our post code and typical consumption values.
Gas unit £0.130000
Gas standing £0.275200
Electric unit £0.423300
Electric standing £0.444400
A gas boiler at 80%, including standing charge, would be beaten by an ASHP with a SCOP of 2.5 at these prices.
I think that's a good thing. The £3k bill to heat your home less so.
A lot of people have never even thought about gas heating bills because they've been so cheap. They will now.
Very true. The increase in cost since early 2021 are eye watering for gas and electricity for many people depending on your tariff and usage.
For us we use less gas and electric than the ofgem typical consumption values so would pay less than the £3050.22 if we went with the example ovo tariff. I just calculated based on the 12000 gas and 2900 electricity tcv as an example.
We are regularly away for a few days and a couple of weeks over winter when we usually switch off the gas boiler. The efficiency of our relatively new gas boiler is in theory over 90% but i suspect may not always be that high. Our usage pattern would need some thought with a heat pump but i am sure we are not alone and there is a optimum setup.
We also know there would be a considerable amount of work to do to the fabric of our old house for a heat pump.
The running costs for a heat pump for our house are getting closer to mains gas i suspect but i am willing to bet it has not yet reached the tipping point on purely financial grounds without considerable investment.
The time will come to make the change to our house but it is likely to be the next occupants as we will have moved once my partner retires. The next occupant is very likely to extend the house and it makes sense to make wider changes then.
We are certainly not in a group struggling to pay for energy, to be honest we really shouldn't be getting the £400 from the government this year. It is pretty poorly targeted IMHO.
the consequences of a catastrophic grid failure are not really anything to do with domestic heating.
I think most properties would struggle to maintain domestic heating in the absence of electricity from the grid ! 😲
I'm not sure that I've properly understood your comment. Are you thinking that this isn't a suitable/relevant discussion for this forum?
My own heating could now continue to operate during an outage because I'm implementing off-grid storage. But we really do need to consider the resilience of future domestic heating systems.
Resilience a live discussion point with my (Borough) Council, who are also the Local Planning Authority. The increasing proportion of standing charges is constraining the sort of houses we'd want to see being built in future. There are a number of enterprising possibilities, particularly in this geographical area which has abundant renewable energy assets. Amongst these are:-
Combined Heat & Power plant (CHP) within a multi-fuel energy hub, serving a cluster of 6-20 homes
Using excess solar/wind generation to split water, and feed the resulting hydrogen either to the grid or to area-wide CHPs
Hydrogen production has greater short-term financial viability than the cost of upgrading the electricity grid. It avoids paying compensation to renewable-energy producers when they are required to reduce generation, and gas costs very little to transport.
the consequences of a catastrophic grid failure are not really anything to do with domestic heating.
I think most properties would struggle to maintain domestic heating in the absence of electricity from the grid ! 😲
I'm not sure that I've properly understood your comment. Are you thinking that this isn't a suitable/relevant discussion for this forum?
My own heating could now continue to operate during an outage because I'm implementing off-grid storage. But we really do need to consider the resilience of future domestic heating systems.
Resilience a live discussion point with my (Borough) Council, who are also the Local Planning Authority. The increasing proportion of standing charges is constraining the sort of houses we'd want to see being built in future. There are a number of enterprising possibilities, particularly in this geographical area which has abundant renewable energy assets. Amongst these are:-
Combined Heat & Power plant (CHP) within a multi-fuel energy hub, serving a cluster of 6-20 homes
Using excess solar/wind generation to split water, and feed the resulting hydrogen either to the grid or to area-wide CHPs
Hydrogen production has greater short-term financial viability than the cost of upgrading the electricity grid. It avoids paying compensation to renewable-energy producers when they are required to reduce generation, and gas costs very little to transport.
All I was saying is that if the electricity grid failed, domestic heating would be the least of our worries and, as you say, gas CH systems wouldn't work anyway.
This post was modified 2 years ago 2 times by Kev M
£880 last year for dhw+heating our place - that'll be £2400 now that we're having two price cap increases. Hoping to get the ASHP in before winter comes but it's unlikely...
Off grid on the isle of purbeck
2.4kW solar, 15kWh Seplos Mason, Outback power systems 3kW inverter/charger, solid fuel heating with air/air for shoulder months, 10 acres of heathland/woods.
My wife’s house: 1946 3 bed end of terrace in Somerset, ASHP with rads + UFH, triple glazed, retrofit IWI in troublesome rooms, small rear extension.
£880 last year for dhw+heating our place - that'll be £2400 now that we're having two price cap increases. Hoping to get the ASHP in before winter comes but it's unlikely...
@kev-m mains gas. Non condensing boiler (73% efficient according to the documentation). Rads and a 120ltr cylinder.
Off grid on the isle of purbeck
2.4kW solar, 15kWh Seplos Mason, Outback power systems 3kW inverter/charger, solid fuel heating with air/air for shoulder months, 10 acres of heathland/woods.
My wife’s house: 1946 3 bed end of terrace in Somerset, ASHP with rads + UFH, triple glazed, retrofit IWI in troublesome rooms, small rear extension.
that'll be £2400 now that we're having two price cap increases. Hoping to get the ASHP in before winter comes but it's unlikely...
Even if you can't get the ASHP installed before winter @hughf why not take that house 'off-grid' too?
You already have the experience to do so. If you used an Octopus Agile tariff, it would at least allow your battery storage to be re-charged at 5p/kWh instead of 30p.
Once the ASHP arrives, your initial investment becomes even more 'profitable'. You can simply add 1 or 2 more off-grid inverters and LiFePO4 cell-banks as required.
that'll be £2400 now that we're having two price cap increases. Hoping to get the ASHP in before winter comes but it's unlikely...
Even if you can't get the ASHP installed before winter @hughf why not take that house 'off-grid' too?
You already have the experience to do so. If you used an Octopus Agile tariff, it would at least allow your battery storage to be re-charged at 5p/kWh instead of 30p.
Once the ASHP arrives, your initial investment becomes even more 'profitable'. You can simply add 1 or 2 more off-grid inverters and LiFePO4 cell-banks as required.
I'm tempted, but at the moment I don't have the spare capital to invest in a DIY battery storage setup at this property. I'm probably going to get the south facing roof covered in solar first of all, as we can self-consume all of that in the summer (EV charging, my Wife working from home, dishwasher during the day, tumble dryer (allergies mean my sister-in-law can't line dry)).
Off grid on the isle of purbeck
2.4kW solar, 15kWh Seplos Mason, Outback power systems 3kW inverter/charger, solid fuel heating with air/air for shoulder months, 10 acres of heathland/woods.
My wife’s house: 1946 3 bed end of terrace in Somerset, ASHP with rads + UFH, triple glazed, retrofit IWI in troublesome rooms, small rear extension.
I think most people would identify with 'lack of capital' being a major hindrance.
However, if your solar PV plans for the roof are implemented first, then those panels will be grid-connected and require installation by a MCS approved contractor. That's relatively expensive and limits the export to 3.6kW (unless your DNO agrees otherwise).
Contrariwise, if you install solar-panels to feed an off-grid battery, then there is no power/size limitation and you can do a fair amount of the work yourself. This makes better use of the limited capital.
On a separate, but related, issue, if we're discussing the house in Zummerzet, then I'm assuming your DNO is Western Power Distribution. I'm one of the community members who've been working with them on monitoring sub-stations for the past four years. Moreover, I've been granted access to their network maps.
If you'd like, then send me a PM with your postcode and I'll see what info is available for grid-connections in your immediate area.
I might be able to help you avoid three separate applications to WPD within a year:
solar-PV export (G98)
battery storage (G99?)
heat-pump (LCT)
There's no guarantee that the ENA rules will allow you to implement your intended strategy. It would be annoying if you got to application 2 or 3, and only then received a rejection due to what you'd already installed.
