Boiler-Heat Pump Hybrids

[JamesPa]

  On 29/11/2024 at 15:34, JohnMo said:

So would just about every hydrid install. The boiler works be switched via the heat pump. Just about every heat pump has hybrid mode built in.

 

 

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Yes but... generally optimised for cost not carbon, so why should we subsidise it?

 

  On 29/11/2024 at 15:34, JohnMo said:

Hydrogen is coming anyway,

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I cant see how using electricity to create green hydrogen can ever compete cost wise with using electricity to power a heat pump.  Hydrogen for domestic heating is, so far as I can see, pure greenwashing.  I don't dispute it may have a place in transport though.

[JohnMo]

  On 29/11/2024 at 15:38, JamesPa said:

generally optimised for cost not carbon, so why should we subsidise it?

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The Daikin controller has a setting for CO2 and I think the Panasonic one does also. MCS could easily come with a rule on that. Plus the immersion gets whatever the current profile of the grid is at that time, so can't really be optimised.

 

Not even sure your neighbours install would comply with current MCS rules, they don't allow your heat pump to be smaller than the 99.6% use case.

 

  On 29/11/2024 at 15:38, JamesPa said:

hydrogen can ever compete cost wise with using electricity to power a heat pump. 

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Easy, we pay wind farms to shut down production already. So the cost wouldn't be high. Instead of switching wind turbine power off, you provide a dump and generate hydrogen from the excess electric dumped.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:03, JohnMo said:

Easy, we pay wind farms to shut down production already. So the cost wouldn't be high. Instead of switching wind turbine power off, you provide a dump and generate hydrogen from the excess electric dumped

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Not as simple as power, a couple of wires and a bucket of water.

 

[JohnMo]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:10, SteamyTea said:

Not as simple as power, a couple of wires and a bucket of water.

 

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But not a lot more difficult 

Most the major wind generation is offshore, so surrounded with water.

 

[JamesPa]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:03, JohnMo said:

Not even sure your neighbours install would comply with current MCS rules, they don't allow your heat pump to be smaller than the 99.6% use case.

 

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Not entirely true, there are some get-out clauses where the 99.6% requirement 'cannot be met'.  The installer and the neighbour could reasonably argue that the requirement cannot be met because planning permission for a bigger and louder pump was refused, whereas the one chosen fits within PD rules.

[JamesPa]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:16, JohnMo said:

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:10, SteamyTea said:

Not as simple as power, a couple of wires and a bucket of water.

 

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But not a lot more difficult 

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But with a COP of about 0.7 as opposed to a COP of 3 for a heat pump.  Excess wind etc should be used to produce hydrogen first and foremost for applications where there is no realistic (and better) alternative, for domestic heating there is.  Aside from the cost, there is a real challenge with grid capacity, making it 4 times worse is not going to help.  'Hydrogen ready' boilers are simply greenwashing

Edited November 29, 2024 by JamesPa

[Beelbeebub]

  On 29/11/2024 at 15:34, JohnMo said:

Hydrogen is coming anyway, there is so much wasted potential with wind, which could be utilised instead of turning the blades away from the wind, to keep bigger plant online, leave them powered and generate hydrogen. 

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Hydrogen is very much the fossil fuel industry "greenwashing" strategy.

 

I doubt a single "Hydrogen ready" boiler will ever run on mains hydrogen. The logistical issues with simply blending H2 into the gas stream are too daunting let alone a full switch.

 

I'm nearly as sceptical about H2 for grid scale storage. The round trip efficiencies are just too poor, especially given how difficult and dangerous H2 is to store in bulk.

 

All hydrogen does is give cover for boiler maufactures and Gas suppliers to keep business as usual.

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:16, JohnMo said:

Most the major wind generation is offshore, so surrounded with water.

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A hydrogen generator is a fuel cell, so expensive metals and an ion exchange membrane. Then it needs pure, deionised water.

Then water vapour needs removing from the gas.

Then compressing.

Then cooling.

Then transfering into suitable containers at 700 psi.

Then transporting.

 

It is not like a school science lesson, that just heats the water up and releases tiny amounts of gases.

[Beelbeebub]

Grid scale baggery storage is getting cheaper and cheaper.

 

And for the longer periods of low renewable there isn't a major problem with burning a bit of gas. We have the infrastructure already (existing Ccgt and gas storage) . Sure it releases some co2 but if we are only doing it for a few weeks a year who cares.

 

The route is we just keep building out wind and solar.

 

By the by, did any see that article about Pakistan adding 13Gw of solar, mainly in the form of small domestic and factory level units, in 2024, against a grid capacity of 46Gw!

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:36, Beelbeebub said:

Pakistan adding 13Gw of solar

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I think China added 210 GW.

[Beelbeebub]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:39, SteamyTea said:

I think China added 210 GW.

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True, but there's against a backdrop of a total capacity of nearly 3,000Gw. So less than 10%

 

Pakistan added 30%.

 

By contrast the UK added...... 2.1Gw, about 3%

[Beelbeebub]

If the UK added even at the rate that Pakistan added, despite being poorer, we would be approaching 100% renewable (aside from calm cloudy periods) grid by the end of the decade.

[Beelbeebub]

It does rather show how we are dragging our feet a bit.

 

Counties that build out a significantly renewable grid will have a massive advantage going forward - just think what cheap power that isn't tied to geopolitical events would do for an economy and living standards.

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:49, Beelbeebub said:

True, but there's against a backdrop of a total capacity of nearly 3,000Gw. So less than 10%

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That is just this year though.

 

One of the things to come out if this year's CoP was us westerners paying to install RE in smaller countries.

Not going to happen, even though it is the cheapest way to help reduce atmospheric CO_2e as their economies grow.

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:51, Beelbeebub said:

end of the decade.

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We could not get it through planning in that time.

And then we could not connect it as local planning departments would not approve any new pylon routes, that join up.

 

I think that we need an open register of people that disagree with RE development, then we can go around their houses and pull the main fuse.

Maybe the energy suppliers can do this remotely. Sliding scale based on grid intensity, then grid intensity gets to 0 GM/MWh, then those people get no power.

Or shall we just waste parliamentary time on killer the sick, rather than improve palliative care.

Edited November 29, 2024 by SteamyTea

[IGP]

I’ll just leave this here re hydrogen. V interesting. 
 

 

[JohnMo]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:20, JamesPa said:

But with a COP of about 0.7

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Why the selection of that value. If your getting a grant to add ASHP that would take over control of boiler. Your on off zones in every room would really be deleted and flow temps optimised. So then your in the 90-95% plus club.

 

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:29, SteamyTea said:

hydrogen generator is a fuel cell

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Or you use the same tech as been used offshore for about 40 years, hypochlorite generation. It uses raw seawater, hydrogen is made in the early stages of the process, the later stages are not needed so product stream and waste stream just remixed and dumped back in the sea - it's seawater less a bit of hydrogen. Waste product of the normal process is hydrogen, normally dumped to atmosphere via an overboard vent pipe. Collect.

[JohnMo]

  On 29/11/2024 at 16:36, Beelbeebub said:

y the by, did any see that article about Pakistan adding 13Gw of solar, mainly in the form of small domestic and factory level units, in 2024, against a grid capacity of 46Gw!

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And the one on Australia a huge solar and wind farm, 100s of miles square.

[JamesPa]

  On 29/11/2024 at 17:52, JohnMo said:

Why the selection of that value. If your getting a grant to add ASHP that would take over control of boiler. Your on off zones in every room would really be deleted and flow temps optimised. So then your in the 90-95% plus club.

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That's the cop of hydrogen production by electrolysis.  We were discussing hydrogen at the time I thought.

[Beelbeebub]

  On 29/11/2024 at 17:51, IGP said:

I’ll just leave this here re hydrogen. V interesting. 
 

 

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Really good

[Beelbeebub]

  On 29/11/2024 at 18:10, JamesPa said:

That's the cop of hydrogen production by electrolysis.  We were discussing hydrogen at the time I thought.

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You need the round trip efficency

 

So elec >> H2 >> storage & transport >> heat

[JohnMo]

  On 29/11/2024 at 18:10, JamesPa said:

That's the cop of hydrogen production by electrolysis.  We were discussing hydrogen at the time I thought.

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Sorry, misread. CoP 0.7 for hydrogen, is much better than switching off generating wind turbines and having to pay the operator as if he is actually producing. Sound like a win, win. You get hydrogen, the wind turbines keep spinning, the bill payers for electric, don't have to pay for not producing electric.

[Beelbeebub]

The absolute worst thing you could do with green hydrogen (if you had any spare) is pipecit into people's homes and burn it to keep them warm.

 

Green H2 has it's place but that should only be for processes where it is absolutely irreplaceable chemically

[Beelbeebub]

Are there better ways of storing curtailment energy than as H2.

 

H2 being produced from "waste"elec is not too bad for high value uses.

 

But we still have other options for waste elec eg battery storage, cheap vehicle charging, thermal storage for domestic heating.

 

We were speaking about hybrid Heatpumps being a misdirected bytgr FF industry to slow rollout of heat pumps. There may be some truth to that, but H2 domestic heat is the ultimate expression of that.

[sharpener]

  On 29/11/2024 at 17:02, SteamyTea said:

I think that we need an open register of people that disagree with RE development, then we can go around their houses and pull the main fuse.

Maybe the energy suppliers can do this remotely.

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They certainly can, it's built into the smart meters they are so keen for us to have.

 

  On 29/11/2024 at 19:20, Beelbeebub said:

Are there better ways of storing curtailment energy than as H2.

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Pumped storage. Air under pressure in underground caverns/salt mines/depleted oil fields.

They have even tried falling weights in disused mine shafts and trains on inclined planes, but the value of the gravitational constant g in <m*g*h> is so small you need truly massive weights.