Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

[b0rn2sk8]

Good idea! I'll trial each one this weekend and figure it out!

Our heating/water only really comes on twice a day! Morning like 6am-730. Then evening 5pm-9pm. Main thermastat for CH is in the hallway and set to around 20c. All the radiators (minus one in the hallway) are on TRV and set to around level 2, which heats the bedrooms to about 17.5c. The living room TRV is set to 5 and is the last to heat up, takes AGES.

So you are heating up from cold which will use a lot of gas but should throttle down once up to temperature.

You might want to to open up your lock shield on the living room rad if it’s not heating up properly. Setting 5/5 usually also means it never turns the rad off. Ideally you want all rooms to reach temperatures at the same time.

If it’s still struggling to heat the room then the radiator isn’t beg enough to cover the heat loss.

 

[eddyr]

@Andr3w
Also check the radiators closest to the boiler, they likely have the shortest pipe run and least flow resistance and can rob flow from radiators farther away. On those radiators try closing down the lockshield valve to throttle flow slightly.
I recommend a quarter turn and then test how all the radiators respond from cold (set all TRV's to max for the test - you don't want to think you have an improvement but it was just because a TRV set low took over as the dominant flow controlling variable during the test).

 

[jpaul]

National infrastructure committee making demonstrative point on no hydrogen for heating ?!?

can't see source of V , point was earlier on r4 too https://news.sky.com/story/all-hand...ly-prioritises-electrifying-uk-homes-12986642

.
One thing they liked even less was the conclusion there was no place for hydrogen in heating people's homes (compared to a heat pump, burning hydrogen is 5-6 times less efficient and far more expensive, the NIC found).

heat pumps aren't always so efficient ? .. and if you have surplus renewable electricity, then, it's efficient to create green hydrogen

but, nonetheless, we need a hydrogen pipeline backbone https://www.energyvoice.com/renewab...gen-to-heat-homes-says-infrastructure-report/

Notably, the NIC finds that “a system with hydrogen heating would be around 1.2 times more expensive than a system without.”
...

CCS and Hydrogen​

The report also dives into carbon transport and storage with the NIC saying new networks will need to be up and running “well before 2035” for the storage and transmission of hydrogen and carbon.


The assessment proposes encouraging the private sector to build these networks and storage sites.

The document outlines: “Government should commit to the development of a carbon transmission pipeline and storage network that can transport and store at least 50MtCO2e per year by 2035.”

so available for hgv ... and cars.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

@jpaul, a correctly installed heat pump is always at least 6x more efficient. No ifs no buts.

It’s never efficient to use electricity to make hydrogen, it’s literally a last resort use case behind everything else.

We don’t actually have much surplus green energy, if any at the moment and because of this it’s highly variable. Splitting water really needs a constant source to maintain the process.
Brown hydrogen is also used extensively by certain industries at the moment, we are not even anywhere close to decarbonising fraction of that yet let alone adding new hydrogen users into the mix.

Burning hydrogen produces NOX, shed loads of it. The idea is to stop producing NOX in populated areas, it’s highly toxic.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I agree H2 will be a great store of energy when we have an abundance of renewable electricity.......... However i suspect there will be far better uses of H2 rather than burning it in gas boilers or cars. the demand for H2 is already high and most of it is made using dirty energy at the moment

edit...... i should have carried on reading posts as b0rn2sk8 already covered it.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

And hydrogen in cars, no.

Pointless, takes up too much space, range isn't that good etc etc

Its funny I was watching a vid of a hydrogen charging station in the US. He had to queue for an hour as the charging whilst faster than an EV is not that much faster than an EV.
So its quite possible to still end up with queues at busy times. Its like the worst parts of Ev and worst parts of ICE combined.

Maybe viable for heavy goods, still makes no sense for private light vehicles.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Maybe viable for heavy goods, still makes no sense for private light vehicles.

that is the way i am leaning on the stuff i have read too........ indeed many feel H2 is pointless for HGVs as well and should be limited to stuff like large boats / ships, but personally i think an argument could be made for H2 in large lorries and busses.... certainly more so than cars.

 

[jpaul]

@jpaul, a correctly installed heat pump is always at least 6x more efficient. No ifs no buts.

ok so you don't think its misinformation if electric is 98% efficient, but gases are 90% ... so 2% loss versus 10% is 5x
which is what I think they maybe saying ... like earlier discourse to justify that home grown gas wells are 4 times more efficient than imported LPG.

heat pump cops are 2-3x in the good season

you have to hope the all-in cost of the heat-pump maintenance etc offset the gain.

thinking about it the 2nd quote I made of 1.2 would suggest the efficiency gain, is, as I suggest.

Notably, the NIC finds that “a system with hydrogen heating would be around 1.2 times more expensive than a system without.”

 

[b0rn2sk8]

ok so you don't think its misinformation if electric is 98% efficient, but gases are 90% ... so 2% loss versus 10% is 5x
which is what I think they maybe saying ... like earlier discourse to justify that home grown gas wells are 4 times more efficient than imported LPG.

heat pump cops are 2-3x in the good season

you have to hope the all-in cost of the heat-pump maintenance etc offset the gain.

thinking about it the 2nd quote I made of 1.2 would suggest the efficiency gain, is, as I suggest.

you are talking about heat pumps vs hydrogen boilers and both using electricity as a source.

A well installed heat pump will achieve a SCOP of at least 3. If it’s not 3, it’s not well installed.

A well installed boiler will achieve a COP of around 0.93 (most new installs don’t get close to this).

So heat pumps are already 3 times better.

Now let’s look at the source. Heat pumps just take electricity so that doesn’t change the equation.

However the boiler doesn’t take electricity, it takes hydrogen. You need 2 units of electricity to make 1 unit of usable hydrogen.

That’s there the 6 times better comes from in terms of running costs.

The cost of a heat pump install comes from one off costs to retrofit. Once it’s done it’s done.

Hydrogen isn’t free either, the entire gas infrastructure needs to be ripped out and replaced. As people move to heat pumps, those costs are shared between fewer and fewer people. It will get to the point that a gas network is no longer viable and reverting back to bottled gas may be the answer for those who need to use an alternative solution.

 

[PlacidCasual]

And hydrogen in cars, no.

Pointless, takes up too much space, range isn't that good etc etc

Its funny I was watching a vid of a hydrogen charging station in the US. He had to queue for an hour as the charging whilst faster than an EV is not that much faster than an EV.
So its quite possible to still end up with queues at busy times. Its like the worst parts of Ev and worst parts of ICE combined.

Maybe viable for heavy goods, still makes no sense for private light vehicles.

There maybe some breakthroughs with material science that help hydrogen, but it wouldn't be my first choice of vehicle fuel. There is an oxford based company that was looking at options to create nano tubes filled with hydrogen which increased the energy density and safety substantially but whether such technology becomes scalable it a big if. Cryogenic hydrogen is plainly far more energy dense but the ongoing losses though boil off and the very real challenges of storage are significant hurdles. Blue and green hydrogen for storage and electricity generation on the other hand are far more plausible options to smooth out intermittent renewables in a carbon neutral way.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

There maybe some breakthroughs with material science that help hydrogen, but it wouldn't be my first choice of vehicle fuel. There is an oxford based company that was looking at options to create nano tubes filled with hydrogen which increased the energy density and safety substantially but whether such technology becomes scalable it a big if. Cryogenic hydrogen is plainly far more energy dense but the ongoing losses though boil off and the very real challenges of storage are significant hurdles. Blue and green hydrogen for storage and electricity generation on the other hand are far more plausible options to smooth out intermittent renewables in a carbon neutral way.

Totally agree. Thing is same can happen in all areas, so who knows how the future will develop. I mean faster charging, higher density batteries would potentially move to defer many peoples issues with EV.
Maybe some price capping for charging, they don't need to make much profit per charge once they are properly utilised, to reduce the cant charge at home penalty.

Yeah cryogenic would be good, the issue mainly is that you either need to power it to keep it at that state (active cooling) or vent it as the temp creeps up. The BMW pilot is worth watching if you haven't seen it. Must not park underground etc.

I see plenty of uses for hydrogen. In commercial sectors such as large manufacturing sites etc.

The main issue to me is people often talk about using the surplus electricity generation, makes it sound better doesn't it. As we have discussed before. What about when there isn't a decent amount or any surplus.
Your almost then forced to either stop (business aren't going to go for that), have restricted supply to where you can guarantee availability, or what?

So yeah I would be inclined to limit the excess hydrogen to grid balancing. Small rollout to limited places. Many of which could directly tap off the electric and it wouldn't even need to be transported elsewhere.

 

[jpaul]

you are talking about heat pumps vs hydrogen boilers and both using electricity as a source.

A well installed heat pump will achieve a SCOP of at least 3. If it’s not 3, it’s not well installed.

A well installed boiler will achieve a COP of around 0.93 (most new installs don’t get close to this).

So heat pumps are already 3 times better.

Now let’s look at the source. Heat pumps just take electricity so that doesn’t change the equation.

heat pump is gaining/amplifying the energy by 3 from the electricity consumed, and the gas boiler liberating 90% of the chemical energy,
this doesn't make (headline) 5-6x more efficient they describe, afaik the electrolysis losses during the green hydrogen are not included in their 5-6x.
the overall summary of 20% 1.2x more cost if we used hydrogen, also seems incompatible with 5-6x too.
(agree that the relative efficiency of electric boilers was irrelevant)

There maybe some breakthroughs with material science that help hydrogen, but it wouldn't be my first choice of vehicle fuel. There is an oxford based company that was looking at options to create nano tubes filled with hydrogen which increased the energy density and safety substantially but whether such technology becomes scalable it a big if. Cryogenic hydrogen is plainly far more energy dense but the ongoing losses though boil off and the very real challenges of storage are significant hurdles. Blue and green hydrogen for storage and electricity generation on the other hand are far more plausible options to smooth out intermittent renewables in a carbon neutral way.

Once they have cracked that for use in airplanes, there should be some technology feedthrough into cars, but even the carbon fibre tanks they are using in existing hydrogen/fuel-cell cars, mira+bmw
have the safety required, providing 400 miles of range on a fill up, for a car lighter than ev's.

[

What about when there isn't a decent amount or any surplus.

surplus is coming from nuclear too, and, I thought low pressure storage in the likes of Rough.
]

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

surplus is coming from nuclear too, and, I thought low pressure storage in the likes of Rough.

I fully expect as we transition more to an electric based world the usage patterns will be far more heavily smoothed by TOU tariffs than people think.
More car charging, hot sand and stored hot water, more home battery etc will IMO make any likely national scale surplus a non event at any level of regularity and certainty for decades.

Remember if your creating a usage for hydrogen you need to be able to supply it.
Unless you have fairly certain and fairly regular surplus energy, that is made available for a very low cost, no one is going to invest in the scale needed to convert to hydrogen.

 

[jpaul]

home hydrogen heating their 'workings' on the 1.2 cost vs heat pump

https://nic.org.uk/app/uploads/Technical-annex-hydrogen-heating.pdf

The analysis takes into a«ount the interaction between choices indifferent parts of the system, namely: • heat pumps usearound three times less energythan hydrogen boilers but have higher upfront in-building installation costs • hydrogen heating reduces thedirect use of electricityand peak electricitydemand from heating but increasesoveral I demand because electricityis used to produce hydrogen • electricity demand for hydrogen production through electrolysis will affect the unit cost of electricity and the availabilityof 'spare (i.e. curtailed) electricitywill impact the cost of hydrogen production • hydrogen heating requires a more extensive system of hydrogen pipelines and additional storage, but no hydrogen heating requires more decommissioning of the natural gas network. The Commission has assumed that hydrogen used in healing will predominantlycome from green hydrogen — produced by the electrolysis of water using low carbon electricity. This is because long terrn reliance on blue hydrogen — produced using natural gas with the carbon emitted in the process captured and stored—has more negative impactsfor both the environment and resilience,which are discussed under those criteria. Using electricityto produce hydrogen which isthen used in boilers to produce heat reguiresfive to six times moreelectricirythan using the same electricity directly in a heat pump.uThis is because more energy is lost in converting electricityto hydrogen, and heat pumps use less energy than boilers to produce the same level of heat However, this does not result ina whole energy system with hydrogen healing being five times more expensiveonce all costs, efficiencies and interactions are accounted for. The Commission's analysisestirnates that a system with hydrogen heating would be around 12 ['mesas expensive than a system without 6

(hydrogen healing LOL - poor ocr)

 

[tsobo]

To fix or stay on tracker .

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

tracker imo

 

[tsobo]

tracker imo

It's a gamble though right?

 

[dlockers]

It's a gamble though right?

Diamond hands baby

(I am literally bricking it each morning when I check )

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

It's a gamble though right?

Well yes
Mentally I have "banked" a load of savings from all the time I have spent paying less than standard/fixed

Over time you should expect the tracker to be lower. It cannot always be lower, or I should say I guess its highly unlikely to always be lower.

 

[HungryHippos]

Diamond hands baby

(I am literally bricking it each morning when I check )

Diamond Hands ftw!