Posted by: @batpred

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Thanks. I am struggling to reconcile net0 with policymakers settling for reactive action from the DNOs. Can anything else but preemptive work from the DNOs be appropriate policy, not even considering the uncertainty that this is adding to scaling the deployment of heatpumps? Plus current practice is clearly reducing the likelyhood of retrofit of a heatpump by the home owner after a boiler failure. 

I think its quite likely a failure to think it through in detail from the consumer view, rather than being deliberate. 

Decision making, I suspect, is largely influenced by industry input and the consumer voice is not strongly heard, other than through 'consumer groups' who are concerned about consumer rights but don't seem always to have their finger on the pulse of practicality.  This level of detail only really comes to light when you 'step through' a problem and get inputs 'from the coalface', as we sometimes do here.  As it happens I have personal experience of politicians being very good at interrogating legislation at this practical level, but whether this happens for government regulation Im not so sure. 

Furthermore, people that can both do the 'blue sky thinking' and at the same time get 'down and dirty' with the detail are very rare, which I think is unlikely to help with crafting regulation which in practice works and fighting those who simply want to ensure that the regulation suits their own needs not the needs of the greater community.  Also remember that DNOs are for-profit monopolies, so if we want them to do anything that doesn't enhance their profits we have to pay them.  

Its a challenge and one to which I cant honestly see an easy answer.  Unfortunately humans aren't as good at things as we sometimes like to think!

@jamespa 

Having been through the entire process of having a Heat Pump installed, and we are very happy with ours, if our gas boiler had broken down and needed immediate replacement I almost certainly would have replaced it with another gas boiler.

Our Heat Pump install took over 3 months from survey to completion.

We had to wait for around a month just to get an install date.

Survey (2 weeks after initial contact) - quotation - discuss proposal - EPC - sign agreement- send to design team - planning permission - MCS paperwork - DNO visit - DNO upgrade - book provisional install date -  install team site visit - make changes to design. All before the install date!!

Anyone whose gas boiler has failed and faced with that timeframe, especially in winter, is incredibly unlikely to wait months without any heating or hot water.

Posted by: @batpred

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I am struggling to reconcile net0 with policymakers settling for reactive action from the DNOs. Can anything else but preemptive work from the DNOs be appropriate policy, not even considering the uncertainty that this is adding to scaling the deployment of heatpumps? Plus current practice is clearly reducing the likelyhood of retrofit of a heatpump by the home owner after a boiler failure

I like the approach taken in some of the European countries - a household has a connection with a clearly defined, set capacity, which is known to the household. They can connect what they want and use upto that capacity, if they go over the capacity then the supply trips to prevent an overload, and they have to reset their meter, which provides a big incentive not to overload your supply and to use the capacity you already have efficiently, by using smart controls on things like the EV charge-point and the heat pump.

If the household wants a bigger capacity supply, then they can have one and get an upgrade, and they pay a higher monthly standing charge for the bigger connection.

Much more logical, both in terms of engineering, economics and efficiency, than Britain's approach.

Posted by: @bash

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Anyone whose gas boiler has failed and faced with that timeframe, especially in winter, is incredibly unlikely to wait months without any heating or hot water.

Nobody will, that's the point of this thread, the heat pump industry has to change.

If you read back I made a proposal for an approach which should be deliverable within a week for houses that are <6kW. The engineering for this subset of houses is much simpler and,  since the ofgem standard house consumes 11kWh per year (corresponding to 4kW loss) a large percentage of houses must fall into this subset.  If we can start here, with the easy houses, we might be able to build out over time.

Currently we are going backwards.  We install roughly 150K heat pumps a year and build roughly 200k houses, so each year we add 50k boilers.

Its definitely doable (at least for this subset), the question is, will the industry step up?

Posted by: @temperature_gradient

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Posted by: @batpred

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I am struggling to reconcile net0 with policymakers settling for reactive action from the DNOs. Can anything else but preemptive work from the DNOs be appropriate policy, not even considering the uncertainty that this is adding to scaling the deployment of heatpumps? Plus current practice is clearly reducing the likelyhood of retrofit of a heatpump by the home owner after a boiler failure

I like the approach taken in some of the European countries - a household has a connection with a clearly defined, set capacity, which is known to the household. They can connect what they want and use upto that capacity, if they go over the capacity then the supply trips to prevent an overload, and they have to reset their meter, which provides a big incentive not to overload your supply and to use the capacity you already have efficiently, by using smart controls on things like the EV charge-point and the heat pump.

If the household wants a bigger capacity supply, then they can have one and get an upgrade, and they pay a higher monthly standing charge for the bigger connection.

Much more logical, both in terms of engineering, economics and efficiency, than Britain's approach.

As someone that has leveraged and invested based on the current UK system of not paying for capacity, justifying it based on planned usage of an EV, battery, etc (that we have since migrating to), I would be penalised for doing the right thing for net0. We are moving away from gas to electricity, relying on grid decarbonisation to make it work. 

But risking straying a bit away from the @jamespa ´s subject, I will try to set that aside for arguments sake, and think on my feet: 

Currently both gas and electricity are subjected to flat standing charges, perhaps that could be changed for gas as well - but in this case, since gas safety and current technology does not allow the fine control like electricity, some method based on peak demand would be used. This would mean someone using a gas boiler for hot water would tend to have the highest charge, and at the other extreme someone with a gas hob would have the lowest "standing" charge. Focusing on the cost of removal of gas (I believe the gas operator needs to cut off the supply from a street point when the consumer disconnected), it may lead to a more cost effective reduction of gas? 

As for having some sort of tiered standing charges for electricity (to be based on contracted power), it sounds that continental european countries that have them for a long time were able to maintain the pace of transition away from gas. In the UK, where the electricity to gas price ratio is significantly different and the heat pump deployment numbers so small, could the introduction of changes in consumer related electricity standing charges become another downward pressure?

But further simplification of planning and the electricity market (and potentially in the manufacturing of the heat pumps) like what is proposed in this thread are only going to help..

Posted by: @bash

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Our Heat Pump install took over 3 months from survey to completion.

Thanks for sharing, ours is looking fairly different. 

But your compact summary of the process sounds great, will try to use for ours

Before any real consideration of heat pump (3+ years ago):

DNO upgrade - EV install - EWI - robust DNO upgrade - EPC 

What our heatpump journey has been like (2 months so far):

Heatpump estimates - Surveys (typical 2-4 weeks wait) - 1 quotation - more estimates - agreement for siting ODU - 2nd Survey booked (2 weeks wait) 

Being optimistic, our final steps:

2nd quotation, discussion, sign agreement, book provisional install - rad upgrades - MCS/BUS paperwork - heatpump install - DNO notification - battery upgrade

I am not sure if the provisional install date can be booked when we sign the agreement or if it needs to wait due to the uncertainty of paperwork. Still I cannot see this last phase taking less than 6 weeks with the installer pipeline. 

Posted by: @batpred

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Being optimistic, our final steps:

2nd quotation, discussion, sign agreement, book provisional install - rad upgrades - MCS/BUS paperwork - heatpump install - DNO notification - battery upgrade

I am not sure if the provisional install date can be booked when we sign the agreement or if it needs to wait due to the uncertainty of paperwork. Still I cannot see this last phase taking less than 6 weeks with the installer pipeline.

I'm the general case no (at least not yet).  But if installers have prepared quotes for the sub 6kW no microbore house targetted in this thread (read the intro) then you will be able to ring them up and they can quote, perhaps with a few conditions. 

Obviously we need sufficient installers, but if it's pre engineered as suggested any plumber should be able to do it.  It has to happen otherwise we will never make the transition, and the heat pump industry needs to change accordingly and needs the think out of it's current box!  The current process is designed for a level of complexity and bespoke engineering that simply isn't necessary in all cases.  For those where it is that's fine but we don't need to inflict this on everyone.  Pre engineering will lead to higher standards also because there are fewer decisions to be made.

@jamespa 

I am all for pre engineering…

Would I be dreaming that mcs/bus have a service agreement with response times? 

That is all i can think could delay setting our install date.