I'm a retired heating engineer looking to improve my knowledge of Renewable Energy sources to replace Gas, oil fired boiler and electricity powered heating systems.

Hi @maxheadr00m - that's an interesting question.

Gas and oil I can understand; but you'd like to use a renewable energy source to replace electric heating too?
Or have I over-interpreted that?

Is it just heating using mains electricity you'd like to avoid?

Whereabouts are you (roughly) within the UK?
That will dictate which renewable sources are most likely to be available.

Have you investigated the sort of heating which is used by crofters in Scotland?

@transparent

I am in my 80s and live in the central belt of Scotland, Hamilton to be precise. As the cost of peak rate electricity is 3 to 4 times the cost of gas and 2 to 3 times that of oil, renewables that replace these fuels need to be affordable in the long term. Electricity in the UK is a long way short of being affordable and climate friendly. If the average electric only house used the average of say 10,000 kWh heating and say 2,500 kWh water, domestic, lighting etc., at current rates of say 32.5p per kWh and 50p per day standing charge, the annual cost will be around £4,450 with 5% VAT. That is almost an eye watering £400 per month. Who can afford that? In the long term when nuclear power and other sources like tidal, wind, hydro and solar farms diversify the base load, the cost per unit will only go up! Heat pumps are only a partial solution. Running costs are an issue and the cost of increasing radiator sizes, adding underfloor heating and drastically increasing insulation and reducing air flow are all costs which the average family are not equipped to shoulder. I think the UK need to get real about a longer transition from fossil to renewable energy and concentrate our best brains on developing reliable renewable base load energy including electrical power generation that we can all afford. Until then I think most crofters in Scotland will carry on using peat, wood and oil for their heating

We are much in agreement @maxheadr00m

There's a topic Electricity price predictions in which your input would be welcomed.

I'm on the Devon/Cornwall border - an area which exports more renewable energy to the National Grid than we consume.
As I have battery storage, I can make good use of solar, and top-up at 9.5p/kWh using a variable-rate ToU tariff from Octopus.

We clearly need nodal (locational) pricing, which would encourage more widespread adoption of domestic storage, and reduce the amount of electricity which is being discarded through Active Network Management (ANM) by National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED).

Yes heat-pumps don't tick all the boxes. But running costs can be much lower if they're operating 'off-grid' from stored electricity.

Please take these thoughts across to the other topic and let's hear your engineering viewpoint.

@transparent  Thanks for your reply.   Yes! I think we are broadly in agreement as to where we need to be in the coming years.  I don't have much confidence that our politicians will be much use in our endeavours to keep warm in the coming years as their knowledge of H&V and thermodynamics is probably zero.   Their exposure to expensive energy is shielded by their salaries and expenses.   Meanwhile I will browse the forum, expand my knowledge and hopefully make some meaningful contribution in the coming months.

Posted by: @transparent

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What would you like to discuss?

Thank you. From last week, I have been reading about air-sourced heat pump powered water heating tech. It seems to me that they'd definitely reduce energy use in home and commercial settings. As ASHPs extract heat from the atmosphere, is there any study estimating the reduce in ambient temperatures if all gas/electric resistance water heaters are replaced with ASHP equivalent in UK?

Posted by: @jamespipe

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Posted by: @transparent

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What would you like to discuss?

Thank you. From last week, I have been reading about air-sourced heat pump powered water heating tech. It seems to me that they'd definitely reduce energy use in home and commercial settings. As ASHPs extract heat from the atmosphere, is there any study estimating the reduce in ambient temperatures if all gas/electric resistance water heaters are replaced with ASHP equivalent in UK?

 

@jamespipe

I have never seen any such study but I would think the localised effect would be immeasurably small. If you think about it, all renewable energy is taking energy from the sun that would otherwise warm the earth and converting it into electricity.  But even that is temporary, the energy all ends up being released back into the atmosphere as heat. We only borrow it for a while. 

Ground source heat pumps can have a localised effect and can freeze the ground/affect building foundations.

The UK Government attempted a definitive study called the Electrification of Heat.
It cost £14.5m and equipped a statistically-derived set of 750 houses with a heat pump.

The study was initiated by a manager in BEIS whilst that department still held the remit for energy during 2021-22.
Each property had the existing heating removed, and a maximum of £4000 of fabric upgrades (insulation) installed.

Useful data was hard to obtain for a number of reasons:

• some home-owners couldn't afford the electricity to run the heat-pump, so they compromised the experiment by reducing the temperature of the home
• few installers took the opportunity to balance/optimise the system once they'd installed it
• few installers had previous experience, which was demonstrated by the poor quality of installation (one large installer had to be removed from the trial)
• installations were not required to have any monitoring equipment or controllers which could be interrogated remotely
• the money available for fabric upgrades was depleted before all houses had been converted
• some householders were asked to 'top up' the £4000 upgrade allocation in order to meet the minimum requirement specified in the pre-installation energy survey. If they couldn't afford to do so, then the heat-pump was installed anyway
• no record was kept of which houses had what fabric upgrades applied

Consequently it's difficult to see how any of the report's conclusions can be used to 'inform' future government policy.

The headline outcome which has been heralded by BEIS and the Energy Catapult (who oversaw the project) is that "Heat Pumps are shown to be three times more efficient than gas boilers".
But during the trial period, gas was less than one-third the price of electricity.
So in financial terms, the trial households were worse off.

@transparent It never ceases to amaze (and irritate) me when the Government initiates any scheme and ‘throws money at it’ in an endeavour to prove a point, a scheme, or demonstrate that they are ‘making waves’ on our behalves to improve our futures. These schemes will often involve half-baked ideas from so called ‘experts’ and the only guarantee that they may offer is that they will definitely involve wasting many millions of pounds of tax payer’s money - they may or may not bring light to any particular knowledge base. Any ‘light that is thrown on a known need or problem is likely to be in inverse proportion to the funding. In this particular instance, I believe it is clear that if installed well in moderately well insulated dwellings, heat pumps are almost bound to be a sensible move - whoever is funding the work. I took advantage of the BUS £5000 grant to have a heat pump installed - but I would still have gone ahead had I had to fund everything, (Yes, I know, I am fortunate as I had the money to indulge my whim). Sorry, I’ll get off my soap-box now. Regards and Apologies, Toodles.

I took part last week in the market research study where @mars had asked for participants that had ruled out heat pumps. On the basis of my recent experience trying, and failing, to get one installed I’m in the ‘never say never but will wait until I can find an installer I can trust’ camp at the moment. What is clear from the research group is that the Government/industry is going to set up a web based independent and trusted single source of information about all things heat pump, comprising finance, installers, the journey (and what’s involved in the actual installation), actual running costs using a database of real households, real life stories and so on. We were shown the prototype web site. It still needs a lot of work but it seems a very positive step to demystifying the process and allowing householders to make evidence based decisions on whether heat pumps are right for their circumstances. 

Interesting observations @davesoa

To avoid cluttering this Welcome Topic, I've copied your post across to a new discussion topic What do we need to know before installing a heat pump?

Posted by: @davesoa

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On the basis of my recent experience trying, and failing, to get one installed I’m in the ‘never say never but will wait until I can find an installer I can trust’ camp at the moment. What is clear from the research group is that the Government/industry is going to set up a web based independent and trusted single source of information about all things heat pump, comprising finance, installers, the journey (and what’s involved in the actual installation), actual running costs using a database of real households, real life stories and so on. We were shown the prototype web site. It still needs a lot of work but it seems a very positive step to demystifying the process and allowing householders to make evidence based decisions on whether heat pumps are right for their circumstances. 

Difficult installers? It’s  all about the Low Hanging Fruit! You’re not the only one who has had difficulty getting an honourable provider.

I have a theory about the cowardly behaviour of the previous and current HP installer scheme situation:

lf a customer asks “too many” questions they are quickly dropped as a prospect And get migrated into the “problem client folder”.

I went through 5 quotation processes before finally getting an installer who appreciated the groundwork I had already done and the lengths I had gone to to make their installation trouble free. 

The stories of others experience on this forum seem to hold true to this behaviour of the installers only chasing the easy fit outs. Judging what people like yourself and  @jamespa have experienced it seems to be a pervasive attitude.

so the idea of a web site reporting customer complaints might well backfire. I would need to see how the government will clamp down on the prejudicial cherry picking industry they have created.

was it not “octopus energy” who even quoted low hanging fruit when it launched its HP Installation programme?