Posted by: @kev-m

I wonder if the definition of Heat Pump is the same across all countries?  The UK's may be mostly A2W units providing heating for the whole house while other countries may include a lot of A2A/AC units that heat or cool a single room. Not that I'm suggesting the Express would ever publish a misleading, attention-grabbing headline of course...

Stats came from here

https://www.ehpa.org/press_releases/record-growth-for-europes-heat-pump-market-in-2021/

Download at the bottom of the press release 

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone, besides me, noticed where we are getting our electricity from at the moment?

Fossil Fuels - 59.9%

Renewables - 3.9%

Other Sources - 18.6%

Transfers - 17.6%

It is a good job that not everyone has switched to heat pumps and EV's at the moment.

This does not bode well for the future.

Swings and roundabouts…. It was over 50% carbon neutral a week or so ago with offshore wind and nuclear doing the heavy lifting. I’m indirectly in the offshore wind business, and to say we’re busy is an understatement.

@derek-m certainly the wind has dropped today, and consequently the price of wholesale electricity has jumped up manyfold. My understanding is that the electricity is normally set by marginal pricing, and given gas is the most expensive mainstream method of generation on the grid, electricity jumps up. At certainly times the price will peak even more due to mismatch on total supply. If the grid doesn't scale total generation capacity with total demand over the next few years, it could get ugly at peak times.

That said, burning gas in a boiler uses more gas than using a gas fired power station and running a heatpump, due to high CoP of the pumps, verses 90% efficency of a boiler. The same with a car - generating electricity from fossil fuels and using in cars is more efficient than burning the fuels directly in the car.

As @hugef says, the average generation mix over longer time periods show that wind + solar + nuclear provide the grid with more than fossil fuels. See

, page 12 for some data.

Overall electrification will cut the amount of energy we need in the system. As to whether we can trust the government to transition smoothly, without any mistakes, who knows. If decisions around Rough gas storage facility, delays in new nuclear, on-shore wind bans, solar bans on farm land are anything to go by, I think we are in for a bumpy ride.

Posted by: @derek-m

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Hi Everyone,

Has anyone, besides me, noticed where we are getting our electricity from at the moment?

Fossil Fuels - 59.9%

Renewables - 3.9%

Other Sources - 18.6%

Transfers - 17.6%

It is a good job that not everyone has switched to heat pumps and EV's at the moment.

This does not bode well for the future.

I'm not sure I quite agree, @derekm.

Any strategy for cleaning our energy sources has to be two-pronged; on one side moving people to a type of energy that can be supplied cleanly and on the other side actually cleaning up the generation of that energy. Both sides need to happen to have the desired effect but each side also needs to progress largely independently from the other. Moving people to electricity helps fund the change in generation infrastructure whilst the improved availability of clean energy helps drive people's decision to move to electricity. If that means times when there is an increase in people consuming energy that can be made cleaner but hasn't been cleaned yet then that's just an unfortunate practicality of trying to promote change.

Now if only I had confidence the government had a cohesive strategy they and their successors were going to stick to.....

@majordennisbloodnok

My point was not so much about the split of where the energy was coming from, but how close we are getting to not having enough electrical energy capacity to meet demand. There needs to be much greater emphasis on energy storage in bulk, otherwise we will be experiencing blackouts.

Past government policy has forced the closure of many coal and gas fired power stations, without having sufficient reliable alternative generating capacity to take their place.

I am a firm believer in the need to move to renewable energy, but it needs to be done in a carefully planned and structured way.