Perfectly 'calm' mate..

Just glad I never fell for the BS being pushed my way. Isn't this forum iabout "Renewable Energy" and not Solely tied to Heat Pumps so I'd suggest comments like your previous are kept to yourself.

My Renewable Energy and Heating is not based on an expensive folly, works, saves CO2 and me a fortune in the process - Maybe others reading, will also realise there are other ways and look at other options.

Don't like it - don't have to read it!!!

Good day to you Sir..

You're right @diverted-energy - this Forum covers a much wider energy-related field than just heat pumps.

The key point however, is that we need to concentrate on solutions.

Somewhere in what you've just written there appears to be information on an alternative strategy which you are actually implementing.
That's what others might be looking for in the months to come.

Have you already described your proposed system elsewhere on the forum?
... with diagrams?
... and links to relevant product pages?

Because that's what this forum wants to be hosting.

Please add a link here if you've already written that topic.
Or, if not, please compose it first, and then we add the link back into your earlier post.

Posted by: @allyfish

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For as long as mains gas per kWh remains at 25% of the cost of electricity per kWh, ASHPs will remain a niche product only for those who can afford them, and not a viable alternative so save energy and money on bills and to decarbonise the UK.

I agree that the gas-electricity link should be broken, but ASHPs are also useful for people without mains gas service. The six-figure installation cost of mains gas is far more than heat pump installation.

Posted by: @diverted-energy

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Air to Air is a damned sight more efficient and effective in that a room can be heated in minutes and maintained for little cost. I'm just about to install a 24,000 BTU upstairs for volume Space heating.

At £1,500 fitted, a tenth the price of a Heat Pump installation.

Firstly, what is unusual with your 3-bed house so that a heat pump install would cost £15,000? Even under the previous RHI-inflated scheme, 4-beds were done for less.

Secondly, you've only heated a room for £1,500, not a house. £1,500 a room for most rooms will soon add up and soon be higher than the £3,000+fitting being targetted for whole-home heat pumps by a couple of suppliers.

Posted by: @diverted-energy

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It's comical that some claim Heat Pumps are 'Greener', look at the UK generation Stats for a whole 12months. Yes, on Winter Windy days, it looks great - but that's 3 months and the rest of the year, up to 80% of our electricity is from burning Gas. So telll me how can they be produce less CO2 than directly burning gas in a boiler?

Grid generation needs to move too. When it does, heat pumps are ready to go totally green, similar to when we can run off domestic solar. Gas never will be green.

Posted by: @diverted-energy

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Heat Pumps never were and will never be the Silver Bullet that is being claimed.

Nobody credible ever claimed they were a silver bullet. They are just one part of the solution.

Posted by: @diverted-energy

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I no longer need to maintain Hot Water storage at 60 degrees just to wash up the pots which was the sole reason for the temperature of Hot Water.

You've never needed it that hot to wash up. Have you not noticed the adverts and PR campaigns from the likes of Fairy this winter, reminding people that soap still works in colder water? It's the soap and scrubbing that's important, not the water temperature. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/cost-of-living/tried-3-washing-up-liquid-25509269

Actually, too-hot water is unhelpful when washing dishes because it increases the risk of solid fats melting, getting halfway through the sewage system, cooling or meeting more detergent and solidifying into a blockage, instead of being put in the food bin where it belongs.

Pop a tablet mate 😉

I don't think this statement holds water.

Posted by: @diverted-energy

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It's comical that some claim Heat Pumps are 'Greener', look at the UK generation Stats for a whole 12months. Yes, on Winter Windy days, it looks great - but that's 3 months and the rest of the year, up to 80% of our electricity is from burning Gas. So telll me how can they be produce less CO2 than directly burning gas in a boiler?

You may find a windless winter's day where you achieve 80% gas but that's not the norm at all!

From Edie:-

Here is the National Grid ESO’s breakdown of the 2022 electricity generation mix by technology:

• Gas: 38.5%
• Wind: 26.8%
• Nuclear: 15.5%
• Biomass: 5.2%
• Coal: 1.5%
• Solar: 4.4%
• Imports (mixed source): 5.5%
• Hydro: 1.8%
• Energy storage: 0.9%

A condensing boiler has a claimed efficiency ~94% when operated in condensing mode.  Unfortunately, that's not the norm, the return temperature is usually >> 54C and too hot to allow condensation and have efficiencies ~75%.  That's a consequence of the systems being setup horrifically badly in most cases.

1 kWh gas burnt in your boiler yields 0.75-0.94 kWh usable space heating.  It's likely to be near the low end than the high for reason stated above.

CC gas generation at power station has efficiency ~50%.

1 kWh gas burnt at CC power station yields 0.5 kWh of electricity.  Transmission losses ~9% so deliverable electricity is ~0.455 kWh.

Consuming this electricity at COP=3 yields you 1.365 kWh usable space heating.

So, compared to your gas boiler, your COP=3 heat pump yields 55%-69% of CO2 when burnt at power station.

BUT

Only 40% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, almost entirely gas.  The rest does not emit CO2.  Your heat pump is running from a composite of these sources and that lowers the amount of CO2 generated even further.

Posted by: @ronin92

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Here is the National Grid ESO’s breakdown of the 2022 electricity generation mix by technology:

Let me qualify that please.

NG-ESO's statistics are derived from electricity generation which actually gets transported on the National Grid.

It does not account for renewable generation which is discarded because the grid infrastructure is unable to accept it.

In my SW Region, the Distribution Grid (132kV & below) is now two-and-a-half times oversubscribed by commercial (3ph) renewable sites.
We have a priority table which allows the newer generation sites to have their output more heavily curtailed during times of over-supply.
This is administered by a process called Active Network Management (ANM).

If we resolved that unacceptably-high level of wasted energy, then a far greater proportion of electricity used in our heat-pumps would be derived from UK-based renewable generation.

Posted by: @transparent

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Posted by: @ronin92

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Here is the National Grid ESO’s breakdown of the 2022 electricity generation mix by technology:

Let me qualify that please.

NG-ESO's statistics are derived from electricity generation which actually gets transported on the National Grid.

It does not account for renewable generation which is discarded because the grid infrastructure is unable to accept it.

In my SW Region, the Distribution Grid (132kV & below) is now two-and-a-half times oversubscribed by commercial (3ph) renewable sites.
We have a priority table which allows the newer generation sites to have their output more heavily curtailed during times of over-supply.
This is administered by a process called Active Network Management (ANM).

If we resolved that unacceptably-high level of wasted energy, then a far greater proportion of electricity used in our heat-pumps would be derived from UK-based renewable generation.

So begs the question, what is being done to resolve this situation?

You and I are going to put a stop to it, @derek-m
That's what we're going to do!

There needs to be much more public awareness of these issues.

And you know what that means?
... lots more conversation in places where things really get sorted out - in the pub! 🍺 

Whilst others are busy giving up something for Lent,
You and I, Derek, are going to go on a mission to tell the lounge-bars of the UK that our energy assets are being squandered.

At the end of every evening, we'll arrive back home knowing that there's a job been well done... and feeling much happier that we're doing our bit to combat Climate Change.

And the next morning, when we awake with a blinding headache, we'll shrug it off and resolve that, once more, we'll spend another evening explaining the evils of ANM to an appreciative audience. 🤭 

PLAN - B

We now have a Dept for Energy again.
The Sec State for Energy and Net Zero is Grant Shapps MP

Is anyone here in his constituency of Welwyn Hatfield?

@transparent I seem to recall having read somewhere that earlier policy was that before any generator could be connected to the grid, they had to agree to cover the cost of changes to the grid required to accommodate it.  And that the policy was removed by some previous government to encourage renewables investment.  Is that true?  If so, we have brought high levels of curtailment upon ourselves.

Yes, you're on the right track @ronin92

Before a DNO issues an 'offer to connect', the applicant was originally required to

1. have obtained Planning Permission from the Local Planning Authority
2. accepted to pay the connection cost
3. agreed to pay a 'contribution' towards the cost of the associated Network Upgrades

But the Government wasn't happy with the speed of progress towards attaining the Net Zero (CO2 emissions) by 2050.

On 03may22 Ofgem issued a Strategic Code Review of the Access and Forward-looking Charges regulations which apply to DNOs.
This Review was intended to make it easier/cheaper for companies to build more renewable generation and bulk-storage onto the Distribution Grid.
The SCR changes the rules from 1st April '23, such that an applicant no longer has to pay anything towards the required enhancements of the grid (category-3).

Let me illustrate this by providing the costs involved for an application by Balance Power Ltd to install a 3-phase storage-battery facility in central Devon. The site, an old dairy building, is at the southern end of a 132kV connection to the National Grid:

Western Power Distribution was the DNO at the time.

They assessed the grid connection would cost around £250k.
... and the associated network upgrades to be an additional £6.5m 😲 

If that application had been processed after April'23, then the entirety of that £6.5m would need to be funded by the DNO...
... whose main source of revenue is the daily standing charge levied on our electricity bills. 😥 

The results of Ofgem's SCR announcement last May are that many more applicants are seeking connections in SW Region, despite the fact that it's already oversubscribed.

A DNO is not permitted to refuse a connection application, although they may delay it, pending the completion of engineering works.
The present DNO (National Grid Electricity Distribution) therefore needs to find funds to undertake the network upgrades...
... despite the fact that Ofgem had just signed off NGED's budgets for 2023-2028, which excluded any income for those upgrades (because they weren't aware the SCR was shortly to be announced).

So, yes: the combined policies of BEIS and Ofgem have created a perfect storm in which SW Region will need to discard ever more renewable generation during the next 5-year RIIO-ED2 Contract period.

And that's why it's up to us consumers to do something about it.... such as briefing Grant Shapps MP as to what's happening.

I hope readers here will appreciate the very valuable insights I have obtained by taking up my DNOs offer to liaise with them as a member of the general public.
They request my presence at regional consultations, and provide access to the sort of information and data you can see above.

I urge others to make similar steps towards their own regional DNOs. I hope you can enjoy as good a response as I get from NGED.
It is a requirement of their new RIIO-ED2 contracts that DNOs are able to demonstrate meaningful liaison with the public and local government.

Ahem.. would that be the same Western Power Distribution who are owned by National Grid UK, who posted a £4bn profit statement in the last year. That connection charge is small change down the back of their sofa.