Posted by: @jeff

Interesting article on heat recovery opportunities with heat pumps

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-next-gen-energy-bills-carbon-emissions.html

Will keep an eye out for other interesting research going on and post anything i find. 

This idea could be expanded even further by the use of solar thermal panels to produce warm water store that could be collected in an energy store for use during the night to improve ASHP efficiency.

Posted by: @derek-m

Posted by: @jeff

Interesting article on heat recovery opportunities with heat pumps

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-next-gen-energy-bills-carbon-emissions.html

Will keep an eye out for other interesting research going on and post anything i find. 

This idea could be expanded even further by the use of solar thermal panels to produce warm water store that could be collected in an energy store for use during the night to improve ASHP efficiency.

Am really hoping little changes like the heat recovery idea in the actual heat pump will catch on. It is very easy from a consumer perspective and shouldn't cost much? 

I do wonder what Octopus will come up with now they have bought a heat pump manufacturer. For example, at the moment we seem to be going down a path of ever increasing size of home batteries to grab as much as possible of the cheap electricity from Octopus Go etc. 

But Octopus Go isn't the future and we know it is subsidised, ToU tariffs we are told is the future. So can we manage with much smaller batteries, picking up cheap power over 24 hours? Something more integrated with the actual heat pump as a mass market product? Perhaps i am unrealistic, am curious about other peoples thoughts about the future, particularly mass market upfront affordable products. It seems to me a huge step forward would be to get demand down as much as possible in a few peak hours a day across millions of households in a cheap way. Is this realistic? 

There will always be a place for DIY battery setups and large home batteries setups i am sure, and at some stage EV batteries outside very small trials. 

@jeff

The present TOU tariff offered by Octopus Agile ranges from 36.77p to 55p for today, so unless there are cheaper suppliers, I cannot see TOU being particularly popular.

As I have stated numerous times in the past, the starting point has to be energy efficiency, if you do not need the energy in the first place then it does not need to be generated and transmitted to your home. The government should be putting at least some money into research of better insulation materials, particularly for retrofit, and better construction methods.

Since installing solar PV over 10 years ago we have reduced our electrical energy consumption by 50% and our gas consumption by approximately 25%. I would therefore encourage people to install solar PV and an energy diverter unit if at all possible. Home produced electrical energy not only reduces the amount that needs to be generated in power stations or wind farms, but also reduces transmission losses on the distribution network. Also installing a battery storage system would be useful for storing any excess generation from solar PV for later use, which could also reduce energy demand during the peak periods of the day. Of course this all costs money and may be out of the reach of many.

National Grid and the local Distribution Networks are not allowed to generate electricity, but are also not allowed to have battery storage systems to help balance supply and demand. The regulator should rescind the second part since they are not actually producing the electrical energy, merely storing it for later use. This would allow much better utilisation of the distribution system and promote large scale battery storage to help reduce peak demand.

On days when there is an abundance of renewable energy and suppliers are being paid not to supply, this excess should be used to produce green Hydrogen or other biofuels for use in aviation, transport or industry.

More research should be made into ways of collecting and storing solar thermal energy, for use in direct home heating, or as a energy source for an ASHP system, which would therefore improve the overall efficiency. Storing energy in water is much cheaper than a battery system and does not involve the use of rare minerals. It also does not degrade over time.

There are quite a number of further ways in which energy saving and efficiency improvements can be made, but I think the above is enough to start the thought processes.