Dan T, you raise a good point about affordability. I think there is an issue of taxes applied to electric compared to gas. Gas has lower taxes. Ideally the government needs to increase taxes on gas and lower them on electric, to help drive the market. Write to your MP 😊

My understanding is modern builds need less heating. My 92 year old dad purchased an apartment in a Churchill Retirement block. It was heated via an ASHP. Fantastic. He hardly ever had the heating on, compared to his drafty old, 1970’s home with storage heaters. Heating and hot water costs never registered. This points to the importance of improving the fabric of an older home before installation of an ASHP. And as we have said above, getting correctly designed, installed and set up. 

Having said all that, I restate I’ve only had my ASHP fitted for 3 weeks, so I have no basis to compare and I have everything crossed that all will be ok 😊. Faith. And I’m not a religious man

@julianc if you don't mind me asking, how much have you set your direct debit for? 

We too moved into our house in the summer, and given the solar energy we generated, our bills were very low to begin with. My advice to you would be to overpay now if you can, as it'll definitely be helpful in the winter.

Whilst all set ups are different, here are my actual costs from September 2020 > April 2021 (Sept is when we got the smart meter and actually started tracking)

Dan

i haven’t changed my Octopus DD yet. We were on £45/m for cooking, dishwasher, EVs, etc before. Plus the oil delivery once per year. 
I’m guessing it will go up to £150/m. But a real stab in the dark

Your costs/usage looks pretty good I would say

Hi Everyone,

Having worked for many years in electricity generation, oil and gas and other energy producing and energy hungry industries, I have a reasonable knowledge of energy production and utilisation along with the associated energy markets.

Like Dan T, it is my considered opinion that ASHP's, by themselves, will not produce the magic solution that the various governments expect. Without a considerable amount of investment in generation, but in particular the distribution network, which at the moment would probably collapse if everyone switched to ASHP's and electric cars. The probable reason why electricity prices are high and will undoubtedly get even more expensive is to provide the necessary investment. Whatever people may think, at the end of the day it is the consumer who finally pays the bill.

I can imagine a cold (windless, freezing fog) day in late November at some point in the future, when there will probably be widespread power cuts around the country. I, for one, will be investing in a portable generator in the not too distant future.

My personal view is that more emphasis should be given to improving the insulation and draftproofing of homes as the primary objective, which I feel would be much more cost effective than subsidising different energy consuming methods. If you don't need to use as much energy in the first place it must be a win-win situation. Less energy required therefore less generation along with less distribution.

The vast majority of people are not going to spend thousands of pounds installing systems that are more expensive to run, which is why I personally feel that the government will eventually be supporting and promoting Hydrogen as the primary heating fuel of the future.

Whilst I support ASHP's and have recently installed one myself, I opted for the 'poor man's' version of an air to air ASHP, which along with my old gas boiler and solar gain from our conservatory provide an integrated heating solution that I find is more energy efficient and cost effective.

@dant it's sometimes better to talk in kWh as prices vary a lot.  But I agree with @julianc, your costs are not bad. If that's all your electricity you're on track for under £1000 a year, which is OK.

Phasing out fossil fuels is a big political problem.  I really can't see electricity getting cheaper but I can see gas getting dearer via some sort of ff levy or, if hydrogen is a factor, it will be dearer anyway.  My view is that the days of being able able to heat a house to 22 degrees throughout for £50 a month will soon be over.  Just like diesel cars that do 60mpg and have a 600 mile range, it was nice while it lasted. I'm probably older than you but like a lot of people, I never had central heating growing up; only the living room had heating.  I'm not saying we should go back to that but we don't need to sit around in shorts and T shirts in the winter (I'm not saying you are doing this!); if we choose to it's going to cost more.     

Hi Kev,

Yes, I can remember waking up to ice on the inside of the bedroom window when I was a boy. Oh. happy days.

I agree with a lot of the logic and good information given by Derek. But I can’t agree that H2 is the general answer. Very inefficient production process compared to electric. The cost of upgrading pipe infrastructure across the UK will be vast - it escapes because it’s the smallest molecule. Development of H2 boilers requires considerable investment because it’s a fast flame (read explosive). And more importantly it maintains the monopoly of the fossil fuel industry. 
If we invest in 4X wind power capacity, you windless day in November won’t come to pass as UK is one of the windiest places. But we need V2G to balance the grid 

Right I’ll get off my hobby horse. Recommend watching Fully Charged YouTube vids where they interview the National Grid lead. We have come a long way. And have a plan to manage this. 

Green hydrogen is currently planned to be rolled out in only selected places. Not the majority as it is by the CCC who advise the government that green hydrogen is far more expensive. Besides to make green hydrogen we must use electrolysis which uses electric anyway, might as well go straight to ASHP’s. The hydrogen boilers are not very expensive to produce and Worcester Bosche are ready to roll out. £500 more on average. Right now we make blue hydrogen by burning gas etc. It’s all early days though and I am sure advice will change. For example biofuel and in particular HVO is a proven replacement for kerosene. Supply is an issue for that but as more electric cars get on the road the market will change and oil company’s will promote items like this. Early days in this debate and all options are possible. Right now though the government is set on heat pumps. It’s written everywhere.

Ref the energy market however below is an interesting article linked.

http://www.publicfirst.co.uk/options-for-energy-bill-reform.html

@derek-m we had ice on the inside of our double glazed velux windows upstairs this winter. Once thawed the water ran in lines down the plasterwork. That's why we need to change our CH system! 🙂

Hi Phil,

It would appear that I have opened a can of worms. Thanks for the report by the way, it makes interesting reading.

The point I was trying to make earlier, is that as things stand at the moment, the vast majority of people (85% on gas CH) are not all going to switch voluntarily to ASHP's that cost more to run, even if the infrastructure is available for them to switch. I certainly agree that the taxation should be more evenly balanced between electricity and gas.

I don't know the relative cost of producing Hydrogen, but from the reports that I have read it would be produced using excess electricity generation when it is available, in the Summer months in particular. The advantage of gas over electricity is that it can be stored in bulk. I do believe that there are tests being carried out at the moment to investigate the possibility of mixing up to 40% Hydrogen into the present gas supply.

When I had a solar PV system installed 10 years ago it cost £10.5k, but shortly after, when the Feed in Tariff rate was lowered, the cost of new systems started to fall. I wonder if the cost of ASHP's will start to fall when the lower subsidies come into effect.

Over the past 10 years we have reduced our electricity consumption by 50%, and by better utilising the excess generation from our solar PV we have reduced our gas consumption by 20%. I anticipate that we will be able to make further savings on gas consumption now that I installed an ASHP to better utilise our excess solar PV generation.

I personally feel not enough emphasis has been put on finding ways of utilising, and storing, the solar energy we receive most days from the Sun.

Green H2 is greenwash. You are correct in the statement that it uses electrolysis when freely generated electric is not being used elsewhere. And it can be stored. But the compression process takes energy. Better to use the “freely available electricity“ say overnight, to charge EV batteries and use that to balance the grid. EV charging losses 20% or so. H2 losses 70% or so. It is only the answer for large electric consumption like Aluminium or Iron production. I truly believe no for homes.  
It’s a bit like the improvements in EVs compared to ICE vehicles. We are at the 1%+ improvement in fuel consumption with ICE cars as the next gen comes out. Whereas EVs are in the 10%+ and continuing.
We have to stop burning stuff. Full stop. And H2 perpetuates this. Green or blue. Same for the supposed “green fuels”.
I’ll get off my soap box again. I sound like an angry man, which I’m not. Read the Tim Harford “How to make the world add up” and it feels like the petroleum industry fight for its life like the cigarette industry of the 1950’s, 1960’s & 1970’s before everyone accepted smoking was bad.

It's all about storage.  Electrical energy can be generated and used at the same time very efficiently but it's not so good for storing and/or transporting.  We need a way to store the almost limitless energy we can produce from wind/air because we will never be able to heat everyone's house and power everyone's EV, reliably, from electricity generated from renewables alone. Batteries, including the ones in all the EVs will help but I think hydrogen will be needed too.  Whether H2 is made then used to generate more electricity or burnt to heat homes directly doesn't matter.  A tank of H2 is just an energy store, the same as a charged battery.  The technology will catch up; 20 years ago we didn't have mass produced domestic ASHPs or EVs.  50 years ago we burnt gas made from coal.  Energy will become more expensive but that's a good incentive to use less of it.       

Of course, more nuclear would also fix it but that's a whole other argument 😉 

Maybe we should have a specific thread or section for this sort of discussion.