Clean Heat Market Mechanism to incentivise heat pumps

[MikeSharp01]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

 

No reason, why other manufacturers cannot do the same, including heat pumps

If everything was IoT (Internet of Things) it could all be controlled by a remote system. It could even have look ahead capability to get ahead of the weather and be self tuning to the insulation / decrement delay. 

[Marvin]

On 17/12/2023 at 21:58, JohnMo said:

Think you miss the point of WC, there is zero complexity you have a controller (either come with the boiler or cheap enough as an option) and within it a simple outside temp - flow temp curve. That's it, no thermostats, or radiator valves - a fully open system. You calculate the curve based on house heat losses, you balance the system, job done. People make a WC system complex by adding thermostats and make lots of justification of why their system needs it.

 

Biggest issue is installer training or lack of, S and Y plan rules the roost, because its easy for the installer.

 

 

Hi @JohnMo

 

We use weather compensation mode all the time on our ASHP, however we find we need radiators with thermostatic valves to cope with excess heat in particular rooms due to solar gain moving through the building with the sun, kitchen produced heat and rooms with TVs computers, lots of LED lights and people in.

 

For us we would have serious problems without them.

[Marvin]

35 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

If everything was IoT (Internet of Things) it could all be controlled by a remote system. It could even have look ahead capability to get ahead of the weather and be self tuning to the insulation / decrement delay. 

Hi @MikeSharp01 This sounds like the future once manufacturers have ironed out all of the bugs, a bit like driverless cars.

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Can anyone say why Weather Comp gets all the plaudits and Load comp seems to be ignored?

 

For customers I tend to choose load compensating controls over just weather comp, although a few of these now also use weather data from some internet source (which weather data is accessed, I don't know but in my experience it's not far off).

 

Here's a link to a University of Salford test of a variety of controls under different circumstances. If you read paragraph 4.1 you'll see they note some of the set up problems that exist with weather comp. only. https://www.beama.org.uk/static/7f5ebe31-04e1-470e-9befd249359959d9/15d07ed2-35d0-4c9f-90f958f81e9425f6/Salford-tests-on-load-and-weather-compensation.pdf

 

[HughF]

11 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Back to the title of the thread. 

 

How about making electricity bills simpler by doing away with standing charges. Its a regressive charge anyway. 

 

Offer a free hour of electricity per day. People would soon figure how to maximise it. 

Or they wouldn’t….. remember, most people can barely tie their own shoelaces.

[JohnMo]

7 hours ago, SimonD said:

If you read paragraph 4.1 you'll see they note some of the set up problems that exist with weather comp. only.

It interesting that the installer(s) had no clue that when running WC you set and run in the mist kart 24/7, with a small set back at night.  Trying to get the WC to function with an on period of 7 hrs out of 24 just doesn't work, unless you bring the curve line up by offsetting it.

 

But with opentherm boiler controls, a readily available technology and nearly all houses have radiators as opposed to UFH, would a simple regulation change to insist heat pumps are opentherm equipped, ensure an easy setup. A simple modulating load compensation thermostat installed in a suitable location, which then modulates flow temperature as required, based on internal house temperature. If customer wants it warmer they turn up the dial - the thermostat does the rest. No return call outs to fiddle with compensation curves.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, HughF said:

12 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Back to the title of the thread. 

 

How about making electricity bills simpler by doing away with standing charges. Its a regressive charge anyway. 

 

Offer a free hour of electricity per day. People would soon figure how to maximise it. 

Or they wouldn’t….. remember, most people can barely tie their own shoelaces.

That is so true.

And the really sad thing is that when I offered to create a course to help explain 'energy', no one was interested.  Picture framing and reiki healing courses were popular.

 

I am not even sure that the current energy prices are the real problem, they have gone from, on average, under 3% of household income to around 7%.

That is after a few years of gradual decline in prices, the long term average has been 5% of household income, pretty cheap really.

I think what has upset people is that the price rise came in one big hit, and the government grant of up to £550 (pensioners got even more) was soon forgotten.

The media will always pick up on some poor sap that is totally clueless and spout nonsense like 'I have halved my usage and my bills have still doubled'.

Should really be the medias job to challenge that nonsense.

 

No amount of tinkering in the market is going to make a jots worth of difference to the domestic user.  Much better to just invest heavily in renewable generation capacity.

Near enough every household in the country was given at least £400, so that is £12bn, enough cash to install ~20 GW of PV (the quick and easy one to install).

That would be an extra 20 TWh of inflation and political shock proof generation.

Connecting up an extra 20 GW of distributed PV should not be a problem, it would take planning on behalf of the DNO, but they have a good idea already about what is possible.  It would only take about 20,000 hectares of land, England is 13,293,000 hectares, so under 0.2% of the land area.

It would also set a trend and highlight that renewables are going to be the major generation source.

 

The above does rather sound like a nationalised power generation project, but the government is currently subsiding, one way or another, the private generators, so apart from political ideologies, which mean jack shit when you are shivering in the dark, we might as well just do it.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by SteamyTea

[SteamyTea]

I just had a look at how much it cost the UK government to bail out Bulb, seems it was £6.5bn.

FFS, how can it be so much, that is 93 TWh of gas (6.2 million households), or 22 TWh of electricity (5.4 million households).

More money that the company could ever hoped to raise via sales.

 

 

[Iceverge]

14 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

but with no standing charge that would essentially be free electricity.

 

Correct. Keen to make the most of it folk would use a plug in rad or tumble dryer for an hour. Maybe extract 3kWh of useful energy. Word would soon spread that if you bought an A2A unit for £1000 you could probably get 12kWh of heating for free. 

 

Spread the cost of the usage across the other 23hrs of the day. The nett cost would be 0. 

 

4 hours ago, HughF said:

Or they wouldn’t….. remember, most people can barely tie their own shoelaces.

 

Head into your local pub just after opening time and you'll have a line of men who can manifestly not tie their own shoelaces but can figure out a complex social welfare system with incredible accuracy.  

 

People will crawl over broken glass to get something for free. 

 

14 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

IIRC there used to be tariffs with no or low standing charge (maybe it was regulated) but the first 5kwh or something were really expensive, effectively making a standing charge

 

Like standing charges it's a disincentive towards energy efficiency.

 

Can you imagine going to the petrol pumps and paying £4/litre for the first 20 litres and then £2/litre there after. The guy with the eco buggy subsidises the cost of the petrol station for the gas guzzling barge. 

 

I'll work an example maybe..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

9 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

Like standing charges it's a disincentive towards energy efficiency.

 

Can you imagine going to the petrol pumps and paying £4/litre for the first 20 litres and then £2/litre there after. The guy with the eco buggy subsidises the cost of the petrol station for the gas guzzling barge. 

Exactly. 

 

Maybe we have a standing charge with X free kWh included (like the mobile deals). And maybe there could be discounts on the standing charge for low income etc.

 

With smart meters you could vary the free kWh based on things like temp.  So during cold snaps vulnerable households could get an extra free allocation

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

18 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

People will crawl over broken glass to get something for free. 

Absolutely.

[Iceverge]

Real numbers here. 

 

Electric Ireland tarriff. Say 3000kWh annual usage for a small flat with an ESHP and an A2A unit. €1448/year or 48.3c/kWh

The same flat with direct electric @9000kWh pays  €3699 or 41.1c/kWh. 

A capital cost of €5000 for an A2AHP and an ESHP would pay back in 5000/(3699-1448)  or 2.22 years. 

 

 

Next take a larger house at 9000kWh €3699/year (41.1c/kWh) with a heat pump or the same house at 27000kWh = €10843 (40.2c/kWh) 

To install a heat pump at €15000 would pay back in €15000/(€10843-€3699) 2.09 years. 

 

 

Now take the scenario where  you have a flat rate of 42c/unit and no standing charge. (This would more than cover the standing charge in this example) 

 

3000kWh = €1260

9000kWh = €3780

27000kWh= €11340

 

Payback for the flat upgrade is 1.98 years.

Payback for the house upgrade is 1.98 years too. 

 

 

The standing charge:

 

1. Punishes lower users disproportionately buy making them pay more per unit. 
2. Punishes lower users by making the economics of upgrading worse than higher users. 
3. Makes the payback for all users to upgrade longer than it should be. 

 

 

 

Note: These figures are done with historically high per unit prices. If the electricity price drops then the differences will be even more stark. 

 

 

 

[Iceverge]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

No amount of tinkering in the market is going to make a jots worth of difference to the domestic user.  Much better to just invest heavily in renewable generation capacity.

 

Completely agreed. The government here are just tacking another subsidy onto the bill for a few months over the winter.  Nothing done to stop the problem of high energy prices or reliance on imported fossil fuels, or insecure supply, coming back the next winter or the next crisis or the one after that.....

 

The problem in the UK (and Ireland where we seem to copy all your unsuccessful policies) is that it's impossible to build anything of scale. 

Take HS2 or the Dublin Metro. Planning reform is a politically touchy subject and until it's tackled, needed infrastructure will be impossible to deliver economically. 

 

 

An issue with the building of building wholescale renewables is that we the funders, don't get to reap the direct benefits of a windy day or a sunny month. The price we pay at the meter is independent of renewables generation. We have no personal incentive to buy into them other than panels on our own roof which leaves suboptimal installs without any economies of scale. (You do save on transmission losses I guess). 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

43 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

An issue with the building of building wholescale renewables is that we the funders, don't get to reap the direct benefits of a windy day or a sunny month.

That is just an educational matter, oh hang on, the government is responsible for rducation.

43 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

You do save on transmission losses I guess

PVGIS uses 14% system losses as a default, the national grid uses 8% (most in the last substation and local cabling), so you even loose out there.

[Roger440]

10 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Real numbers here. 

 

Electric Ireland tarriff. Say 3000kWh annual usage for a small flat with an ESHP and an A2A unit. €1448/year or 48.3c/kWh

The same flat with direct electric @9000kWh pays  €3699 or 41.1c/kWh. 

A capital cost of €5000 for an A2AHP and an ESHP would pay back in 5000/(3699-1448)  or 2.22 years. 

 

 

Next take a larger house at 9000kWh €3699/year (41.1c/kWh) with a heat pump or the same house at 27000kWh = €10843 (40.2c/kWh) 

To install a heat pump at €15000 would pay back in €15000/(€10843-€3699) 2.09 years. 

 

 

Now take the scenario where  you have a flat rate of 42c/unit and no standing charge. (This would more than cover the standing charge in this example) 

 

3000kWh = €1260

9000kWh = €3780

27000kWh= €11340

 

Payback for the flat upgrade is 1.98 years.

Payback for the house upgrade is 1.98 years too. 

 

 

The standing charge:

 

1. Punishes lower users disproportionately buy making them pay more per unit. 
2. Punishes lower users by making the economics of upgrading worse than higher users. 
3. Makes the payback for all users to upgrade longer than it should be. 

 

 

 

Note: These figures are done with historically high per unit prices. If the electricity price drops then the differences will be even more stark. 

 

 

 

 

Whilst thats useful, im not entirely sure how or what the relevance here is.

 

There are very few houses running direct electric heating. Clearly those that do need to get swapped ASAP!

 

The real issue is those with currently functioning gas/oil boilers. Payback period is far far longer. And often more expensive to run. Aside from the fitting challenges discussed already, i just cant see wholesale take up where payback is many years. Its just not affordable for the majority.

 

As i said further up, i cant make the numbers stack up given i have a perfectly servicable oil boiler system, with the cheapest available fuel source, ie, oil.

 

Of course, as im in wales, if i can get my household income below £31k, i can have up to £45k of work done (inc full house insulation). For free. But earn £1 over, you get nothing. Not a penny.

 

[Iceverge]

@Roger440

 

Yes the financial case for heat pump conversion from fossil fuels is almost impossible to justify. Oil and gas are just too cheap.

 

To then levy them disproportionately at the point of use is hard to morally justify unless you provide an affordable alternative and stop generating electricity with them in the first place. 

 

I was trying to argue for the removal of the standing charge as it penalises those who use, and wish to use electricity efficiently. 

 

As an aside, financial cliff edges in policy, whilst easier to administer, do foster some very strange behaviour.

 

Income tax banding, means tests etc. more often than not, discourage productive economic output to foster a furthering of state dependency. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

8 hours ago, Iceverge said:

Yes the financial case for heat pump conversion from fossil fuels is almost impossible to justify. Oil and gas are just too cheap.

It's not that black and white. When you start using TOU tariffs, and have a battery the costs to swing towards ASHP. Comparing my usage, gas and electric, to electric only, during the heating season I am around £2 a day cheaper on average with the ASHP.

 

ASHP CoP isn't a constant, it changes with outside air temp. A CoP of less than 3 can be seen when it's -5, but you can also see a CoP of 5 to 6 at 12 degs when its 12 degs outside. So the case for an ASHP is actually way stronger for places that get mild winters. The SCoP should average out at around 4 or better. If it doesn't your install needs a look at, some fine tuning or the owner isn't operating it effectively.

[SimC]

On 19/12/2023 at 13:05, SteamyTea said:

That is just an educational matter, oh hang on, the government is responsible for rducation.

PVGIS uses 14% system losses as a default, the national grid uses 8% (most in the last substation and local cabling), so you even loose out there.

The PVGIS default value of 14% system losses are not all down to conversion and transmission losses, a proportion is due to the degrading performance of the panels as they age over their lifetime. Many panels are rated at 98% after year 1 and down to 86% at year 25, so you could assume a mean value of 92% (8% loss) over the lifetime.

 

Here is the relevant extract from the PVGIS user manual.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by SimC

[Roger440]

14 hours ago, JohnMo said:

It's not that black and white. When you start using TOU tariffs, and have a battery the costs to swing towards ASHP. Comparing my usage, gas and electric, to electric only, during the heating season I am around £2 a day cheaper on average with the ASHP.

 

ASHP CoP isn't a constant, it changes with outside air temp. A CoP of less than 3 can be seen when it's -5, but you can also see a CoP of 5 to 6 at 12 degs when its 12 degs outside. So the case for an ASHP is actually way stronger for places that get mild winters. The SCoP should average out at around 4 or better. If it doesn't your install needs a look at, some fine tuning or the owner isn't operating it effectively.

 

Iceverge is right. Converting from a perfectly servicable gas or oil boiler to ASHP simply makes no financial sense, no matter how good the installation.

 

You suggestion above ignores the capital cost. Which is a considerable cost. £2 a day for half the year lets say is £365. Its going to take an awful long time just to break even,.especially if you chuck in a set of batteries. Payback is well beyond a decade. Assuming nothing major goes wrong. If it does, you might be at 2 decades.

 

If you start working on paybacks that long, then you might argue its not black and white. Meanwhile, back in the real world............................................................

[JamesPa]

1 hour ago, Roger440 said:

 

Iceverge is right. Converting from a perfectly servicable gas or oil boiler to ASHP simply makes no financial sense, no matter how good the installation.

 

You suggestion above ignores the capital cost. Which is a considerable cost. £2 a day for half the year lets say is £365. Its going to take an awful long time just to break even,.especially if you chuck in a set of batteries. Payback is well beyond a decade. Assuming nothing major goes wrong. If it does, you might be at 2 decades.

 

If you start working on paybacks that long, then you might argue its not black and white. Meanwhile, back in the real world............................................................

We shouldn't be aiming IMHO to replace 'perfectly servicable' boilers'.  Our aim should be that every boiler that is replaced for some  reason (eg it's no longer 'perfectly servicable') and every new heating system, should be carbon friendly (ie, in the vast majority of cases, a heat pump).  That's 1.6m heat pumps per year BTW, about 20 times the current rate of installation. 

 

If cost is the concern then consider the cost of not dealing with climate change.  Unfortunately, in the real world, we are now well past the point where you (unless you are over 80 or otherwise have a short remaining life) and I, have the option not to pay, the only questions now left are whether to pay in a mildly controlled way or to pay catastrophically and chaotically, and how we choose to distribute the now unavoidable costs.  Had we listened 30 years ago things might have been different, but we didn't so they aren't.

Edited December 21, 2023 by JamesPa

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, JamesPa said:

That's 1.6m heat pumps per year BTW, about 20 times the current rate of installation. 

According to this

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1228145/plumbing-and-hvac-company-number-in-great-britain/

there are about 40k companies that do plumbing and HVAC.

If the demand was there, then each company could take on an extra half person, so another 20k of fitters.

If they could replace 1 gas boiler to a heat pump twice a week, then that would be 10k of extra capacity, half a million extra installs on top of what is currently being done.

If there was the political/public will to actually change, rather than the current will, with spurious arguments not to change, changing 2 million installation a year should be possible.

With about 30 million home, that would take 15 years.

 

I shall just leave this chart here, I have highlighted what it was like 15 years ago

 

 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series

[JamesPa]

30 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

According to this

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1228145/plumbing-and-hvac-company-number-in-great-britain/

there are about 40k companies that do plumbing and HVAC.

If the demand was there, then each company could take on an extra half person, so another 20k of fitters.

If they could replace 1 gas boiler to a heat pump twice a week, then that would be 10k of extra capacity, half a million extra installs on top of what is currently being done.

If there was the political/public will to actually change, rather than the current will, with spurious arguments not to change, changing 2 million installation a year should be possible.

With about 30 million home, that would take 15 years.

 

I shall just leave this chart here, I have highlighted what it was like 15 years ago

 

 

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series

Indeed so.  What must be done is definitely do-able.  Its only lack of political will and spurious arguments against that are stopping us.  

[JohnMo]

9 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Iceverge is right. Converting from a perfectly servicable gas or oil boiler to ASHP simply makes no financial sense, no matter how good the installation.

 

You suggestion above ignores the capital cost. Which is a considerable cost. £2 a day for half the year lets say is £365. Its going to take an awful long time just to break even,.especially if you chuck in a set of batteries. Payback is well beyond a decade. Assuming nothing major goes wrong. If it does, you might be at 2 decades

First no one is saying swop out a perfectly serviceable boiler. I swopped mine out because I wanted cooling in the house, a boiler cannot do that!

 

My cost were just over £2000 for the heat pump and cylinder, so payback for the heating side is 4 to 5 years. But that really isn't the important but, I have cooling, and I am doing my bit for the planet, so win, win

 

Battery with my solar will make most my spring/summer/autumn electric free save another £4 per day.

 

So overall we saving are around £1000 per year. There's always a back period. But overall spent way less than a decent used car, which just costs you money, you never get back.

[Beelbeebub]

I agree that servicable boilers shouldn't be swapped out yet, the low hanging fruit is knackered boiler replacements.

 

The problem is right now, a straight boiler swap is 2-3k with no changes to rads etc.

 

Whereas a HP swap is at least 5k  with no rad or cylinder changes.

 

The flow temp is the big issue. Modern 55C installs should be swappable to HPs with minimum probs aside from locating the HP.

 

So you get a extra layer of cost for the HP swap because the old system isn't up to scratch.

 

The gov has rolled back the boiler ban. Maybe a compromise would be to bring in (fairly quickly) a flow temp limit.

 

So boilers would be hard wired with a 55C flow limit on heating flow (hot water cycle could be higher but again some sort of limit on time for that to avoid people just setting their boiler to DHW mode all the time). 

 

That way you can still replace with a boiler but you would also need to upgrade the emitters - which we should be doing anyway.

 

Tie this in with a rad scrappage schem where you can trade in any rad less than K2 for a (say) £100 discount against any K2/3 rad of equal or greater power output at the lower temps.

 

Chuck in some grants for low income households etc.

[Roger440]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

First no one is saying swop out a perfectly serviceable boiler. I swopped mine out because I wanted cooling in the house, a boiler cannot do that!

 

My cost were just over £2000 for the heat pump and cylinder, so payback for the heating side is 4 to 5 years. But that really isn't the important but, I have cooling, and I am doing my bit for the planet, so win, win

 

Battery with my solar will make most my spring/summer/autumn electric free save another £4 per day.

 

So overall we saving are around £1000 per year. There's always a back period. But overall spent way less than a decent used car, which just costs you money, you never get back.

 

Well, actually thats exactly what we were saying. But not to worry. 

 

If we are all agreed that it isnt remotely financially viable, then thats all good.

 

In my case to go to a HP system will require everything. So into 5 figures if im paying someone. Plus the house is a thermal catastophe. So another, bigger 5 figure sum required.

 

The reality is it will never make any sense. The oil boiler can be repaired indefinitely. Its a worcester greenstar. Nice and simple.