Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Curlyriff said:
The £4k install cost is the above install cost of the ASHP and that is the figure we have just used on a contract for 350 home development. The developer has gone for that because for them they see it as a USP that adds value compared to that off the ASHP. The setup cost to get on site is shared between plots so the more plots you have the reletative per plot as drops similar to piling foundations where you have a setup cost and so if an extra say 10 plots need piling due to tree influence compared to the initial 40 assumed or whatever that cost isn't too bad and sub-divided can be accounted for.

The project planning for the pipeline we are finding is starting to be looked at planning stages and we are currently working with two larger housing developements that are aiming to be BIM co-ordinated for first pass with basically full foundation and structural design prior to even submitting to planning with hopes they are going to be able to expedite at later date (we don't generally agree it will work out that way but that is their aim on a few trial projects) andt these are larger multi block 800+ appartment site and mixed usage with solar and battery also being looked into.

All mixed use we have done design for last 12 months has got full solar on roof from framed sheds to appartments to carparks. I do also feel that house builders do need to consider their responsibility. It is the same issue they have for litereally paying customers off to get better NHBC ratings when you do the surveys by offering say free skip usage when you move in and want to landscape garden or dropping a load of bricks off to build a concervatory dwarf wall or BBQ area etc. They would rather that than build things to an acceptable level.
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You said ASHP is a half measure and proposed GSHP as the alternative, so I’m wondering how you expect that to be feasible for the average newbuild and why that is the house builders responsibility to consider given its a large extra cost compared to the house price or a ASHP? Also how that initial large extra cost is worth the small efficiency gains for the average UK climate? I don't think you even get back the extra install costs of bored GSHP with lower running costs over a 20 year period even at current electric prices. eg if you take a heating/hot water use of 12,000kWh and assume a SCOP of 300% for ASHP, even if GSHP gave you 25% better SCOP performance at current prices the GSHP would save £330 a year, so over 20 years thats £6600.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Octopus session 3 seems to be in

Hacked mine, got 3224 points from combo of house battery reducing to zero and a sneaky bit of battery charging in the 3 hour pre session window.
I slightly overcooked the charge so added around 2kwh of battery I didn't need.
Following day I did similar so interested in saving session day 4 data where I didnt overcharge
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What is the hacking and the pre session window thingy? I've got my session 3 results which are the same as session 1 at 1650 points. Session 2 was 2400 points and I've no idea what I did differently.
 
Gammawolf said:
You said ASHP is a half measure and proposed GSHP as the alternative, so I’m wondering how you expect that to be feasible for the average newbuild and why that is the house builders responsibility to consider given its a large extra cost compared to the house price or a ASHP? Also how that initial large extra cost is worth the small efficiency gains for the average UK climate? I don't think you even get back the extra install costs of bored GSHP with lower running costs over a 20 year period even at current electric prices. eg if you take a heating/hot water use of 12,000kWh and assume a SCOP of 300% for ASHP, even if GSHP gave you 25% better SCOP performance at current prices the GSHP would save £330 a year, so over 20 years thats £6600.
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So the £4000 additional cost by the house builder is added to the purchase price of the house. This on average is around 1.4% of the value of the property. With regards to that is a 12yr return to the initial cost. Now with regard to that then the longer you are at the property of course the better the return but it is also just good for future generations also.

Now the benefits that are missing that are gained are increased garden space where currently an average is only 25m2 for a 2 bed and 45m2 for a 3 bed at least south England (Oxfordshire, Gloustershire and such forth) so the gain by removing the ASHP also means the value of the property is higher by maximising the outdoor space without a huge unit there. It's not just the cost of the system or what it does but people's quality of living space should be considered and its something we consider on all our sites we put designs into.

Air source heat pumps are also not efficient generally below 7c, well here in the last 10 days it's been colder than that meaning the heat returned is minimal when you need it most. Ground source doesn't have such issue in that the temperature is more stable as you are pulling heat from 100m-200m out of the ground.

The other general benefit is of course general lower CO2 emissions which gov pays grants for to building sites and such reducing the cost further in terms of credits for doing such. Honestly all the benefits outstrip the negatives but the house builders in the UK and the regs that support them are woefully inadequate and it is sub par housing for short term profit gains that is the issue.

For every 100 houses going to GSHP over gas boiler is 70tonnes of carbon saved in a year and about 15tonnes over a ASHP system. You multiply that by the number of houses built every year and its a colossal saving still.
 
maybe heat pump cost reductions aren't imminent https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/evidence-for-heat-pump-price-drop-fails-to-add-up/
Mike Foster, EUA chief executive, believes this new evidence renders UK heat decarbonisation plans “useless” and calls for a government re-set.

“The French have blown a hole in UK government policy,” Foster said in a statement. “Their experience shows that higher volumes of heat pump sales does not massively reduce their cost. The forecasted reductions, claimed by BEIS, are simply numbers plucked from thin air. Just across the channel we have real word experience, 537,000 heat pumps fitted last year, at a similar cost to that experienced in the UK, with our 50,000 sales.”

Foster added: “Heat pumps are a globally traded product, why would they be cheaper in the UK than France? It’s complete nonsense to suggest they would. Once you debunk this myth, the whole UK heat and buildings strategy falls apart. It now needs an urgent re-set.

“Boris Johnson set a target of 600,000 heat pumps by 2028; cost reductions of 25-50 percent by 2025; parity with a gas boiler by 2030. In doing so, he has thrown public money at subsidies, he has scrapped VAT on heat pumps, he threatens to fine boiler manufacturers if they fail to meet his targets. But his own advisory body have warned that heat pump running costs are higher than a gas boiler and now these mythical costs reductions are shown to be just that, a myth.

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You can buy a heat pump in the local DIY store for 1500€ in France. The main problem is that you have to have a registered company fit it for you. This is where the companies rip off the governments & customers, instead of a reasonable cost; the same as insulation, solar panels etc.

A relevant piece of current information, hot from the press, is that the EU (and, by default the UK as co-signatories) are banning use of the fluid used in Heat Pumps as it is basically like CFCs and will damage the ozone layer. This means that other fluids, like propane will have to be used, a lot of new development is thus needed
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given forecasts of sub-zero - was wondering if the house thermostat has signed values.
 
jpaul said:
maybe heat pump cost reductions aren't imminent https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/evidence-for-heat-pump-price-drop-fails-to-add-up/





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given forecasts of sub-zero - was wondering if the house thermostat has signed values.
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Yeah there is no way right now that you can get parity on installation costs on a DIY system. But the argument given here isn't helpful. 5yrs od development and greater adoption will reduce the unit costs. These costs are the bigger part for house builders side not the installation when they are already on site doing ground works and such. Although this is mostly about ASHP too which as stated are completely different in that terms.

They are not the solution at all beyond someone's mandate in government to look like they helping. It's also best to combine GSHP with battery and solar. If you have a full ecosystem you can be carbon negative let alone neutral. Because you'd be able to supplement your own hot water and heating off grid 24/7 and with the correct setup it is possible to be completely off grid with electric at same time year round. The big problem is that's like £50-75k for an aftermarket install. Its about £20-25k per plot for a builder so at moment the uptake is limited of course but honestly if the government subsidised all housing to come with that so at around 35k homes a year that's £875 million a year if they covered 100% costs well look at what else the government has wasted monies on.

These are costs that have been similar since 2019 so you could have had over 100k homes across the UK that are carbon negative and providing to the grid now. The value of the properties would be higher for the builder so even if you took 50% and put that on the property value at £12.5k per home and government paid the other 50% then it would be a huge boon for the UK housing stock and the energy market.

£6 billion from Bulbs collapse is what 1.4million homes could have been built with a 50% subsidisation for that.
 
Harnser said:
What is the hacking and the pre session window thingy? I've got my session 3 results which are the same as session 1 at 1650 points. Session 2 was 2400 points and I've no idea what I did differently.
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Ok so you need a battery to really do it, or load shift specifically that day, eg dishwasher, tumble etc assuming your not using them off peak already
The savings window is a fixed time say 6-7pm. Your savings session data is compared to the same from the previous 10 (or 4 for weekend) non savings sessions days.
However in order to check that the weather is not particularly different they also review the three hours prior to the start of the savings session on that day, so if you load up your elec demand in those three hours it will look like your demand is higher.
Specifically how much difference it makes is unknown so you deffo dont use energy you dont need but if you need to use some then thats the window to use it in as it makes your daily load look higher.
 
HungryHippos said:
That logic doesn't work because it doesn't solve the bulb problem to subsidise green energy installations.

Also why would only some people benefit from this?
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No I know. I'm just putting into perspective the waste that the gov did compared to what they could have done. There was no reason the situation should have ever cost £6 billion either.

And we are discussing new builds. Not subsidising current properties. Those costs are around 3x to 4x for retrofit compared to new build.
 
Troop said:
Can you go to "Explore my energy use" I have a day of the week missing? Sat or Sun, yours the same?

Edit for pic.

kSWMc18.jpg
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I think everyone is missing 03/12, but it should pop back up at some point.

Curlyriff said:
No I know. I'm just putting into perspective the waste that the gov did compared to what they could have done. There was no reason the situation should have ever cost £6 billion either.

And we are discussing new builds. Not subsidising current properties. Those costs are around 3x to 4x for retrofit compared to new build.
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Oh I don't think many people would disagree with you, we are incredibly good at wasting money/resources.

What I'd really like is an air source heat pump tech that can almost directly replace a gas boiler location/size. ground source as you pointed out is very hard to add later on, much easier before you start putting people and foundations down.

ASHP is OK at least in so far as putting up an external unit outside, and an internal thing inside where the boiler goes, but they don't seem to be ready to replace boilers yet in function.

I have a wall mounted combi boiler, I don't have a hot water tank at all, so I would effectively need something that can do what the combi does, and can plug into the existing CH system and work with the current rads.
 
HungryHippos said:
I think everyone is missing 03/12, but it should pop back up at some point.



Oh I don't think many people would disagree with you, we are incredibly good at wasting money/resources.

What I'd really like is an air source heat pump tech that can almost directly replace a gas boiler location/size. ground source as you pointed out is very hard to add later on, much easier before you start putting people and foundations down.

ASHP is OK at least in so far as putting up an external unit outside, and an internal thing inside where the boiler goes, but they don't seem to be ready to replace boilers yet in function.

I have a wall mounted combi boiler, I don't have a hot water tank at all, so I would effectively need something that can do what the combi does, and can plug into the existing CH system and work with the current rads.
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Pretty much your only option there is a straight electric boiler at the moment. That will 3x your running costs at current prices.

ASHP doesn’t need an internal unit at all, everything is contained within the external unit. However you need either a hot water cylinder or some other means of creating hot water like an electric boiler. A cylinder being the most optimal solution in terms of both performance and running costs.
 
I have not massively explored it................ but i remember - must be 12 -18 months ago - an energy storage system for hot water heating shown on......... fully charged i think (its on youtube)

it was essentially a large insulated tank full of stones - so incredibly low maintenance - that you would heat up via electricity, but you would use off peak electricity which would make it not that expensive to run, and it had some water pipes running through it to heat your water.

it was better than a water tank because the stones could hold more energy than water, and iirc it was insulated enough that it would keep temp for ..... (from memory) a week at least. The stones could get upto - again from memory - 300 degress C+ (update 800 degrees) which obviously is more than water, and such was the insulation it was cool to touch on the outside.

sure right now today it would cost - even using off peak electricity - more than gas..... but this will surely have to change sooner rather than later. i reckon it is something i will look into when i have to replace my boiler..... Its main issue is weight. i dont have a garage and i am not sure it would be feasible to put in the attic...... but OTOH i dont really want a massive ASHP sticking out of my house either. My mate has an ASHP and its not bad for his use case (heating a swimming pool in summer - its another world! ) but it is not very efficient in winter (which is when you would most need one for a heating system) and its not that quiet, - ok for him as its not near his house but for my use case if i had one it would be right next to... my lounge probably
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Off peak elec should be cheaper to use for heating (anything) than gas assuming your on go

Go 7.5p/8.25p vs gas 10.3p

Thats before you factor in efficiency of boiler and indirect inefficiency of the water loop and pump etc
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You'd need to be able to store that energy though and then you're into efficiency problems again.

Very few people need to heat their homes at 2am

(That's ignoring that Go isn't available to 90% of the population either).
 
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