Stop pushing heat pumps or face major backlash, Dale Vince tells Labour

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... abour-ulez

Party donor Dale Vince warns that urging homeowners to switch to clean-power technology risks political storm bigger than Ulez
The government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.

Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy advocate, called on Keir Starmer to rethink national programmes, championed by Boris Johnson, pushing the technology. Vince argued that Whitehall should explore alternatives to the devices, which he said were expensive, caused serious disruption and could end up increasing energy bills for some people.
Vince, whose criticism of heat pumps has proved divisive among environmentalists, said mass use could bring a bigger political backlash than London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), which led to a surprise byelection defeat for Labour last year in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

“It’s a Johnson-era policy, and like most Johnson ideas, it wasn’t thought through,” Vince said. “It wasn’t meant for the real world, if you look at the amount of money committed. Electricity energy bills overall in our households will go up unless you assume heroic levels of performance.
etc.

Interesting... who is right?

[Moxi]

It’s a shades of grey type argument, is a well balanced modern gas boiler heating a well insulated house and DHW any worse than an averagely installed ASHP in an averagely insulated home where the homeowner is left to “ figure it out” after installation.

An ASHP for everyone isn’t the right solution, some folk might just need better insulation and to stay with their hwc and immersion heater.

I like ASHP but even I am looking at them with the view of is it the right answer for me ? Considering our heating season generally runs from October/November to February/ March ie 4 to 6 months does a 5 to 8kW ASHP that only runs to produce DHW for 6 to 8 months a year have a chance of delivering a CoP of 3.5 or better ? I doubt it. I think this is what he’s getting at - the one solution for all is damaging the overall move to a greener system for heating and DHW.

They way government has addressed this currently for funding therefore prevents other options and forces incorrect technology applications on some customers creating a negative backlash in the popular press. I certainly know of a number of badly sized fit and flee installations around my area.

Government needs to rethink how they drive a general change that better fits individual needs.

Moxi

[HML]

I like ASHP but even I am looking at them with the view of is it the right answer for me ? Considering our heating season generally runs from October/November to February/ March ie 4 to 6 months does a 5 to 8kW ASHP that only runs to produce DHW for 6 to 8 months a year have a chance of delivering a CoP of 3.5 or better ? I doubt it. I think this is what he’s getting at - the one solution for all is damaging the overall move to a greener system for heating and DHW.

ASHPs most definitely can give CoPs (or SPFs) of more than 3.5. I installed mine in October last year and the SPF over that year is 4 and that's using a cheapish Samsung R32 heat pump. Had I installed a good R290 heat pump the SPF would have been above 4.5, as the Samsung doesn't perform well at 5C and less. This is in a largish bungalow with mediocre insulation which would be very difficult and expensive to improve significantly. Heat demand is about 20kWh per year.

If you look at the Open Energy Monitor heat pump monitor list https://heatpumpmonitor.org/ you can see that the average SPF of systems with about a years worth of data is 3.9. Admittedly that's biased to some extent as it's going to be populated by enthusiasts with an interest in making their systems work as well as they can, but it shows that good performance with low running costs is quite easily possible.

The secret is to design and install the overall system properly, which might be an issue with the ex double glazing sales tactics being used to harvest grants.

Of course flats and small terrace houses are likely to be not very suitable for air to water systems, but air to air systems are quite suitable for small properties.

"Vince claimed that he was speaking in the “national interest” in criticising heat pumps. He proposes an alternative – green gas, or biomethane, made from organic material, which his company Ecotricity develops.

No conflict of interest there then.

[Mart]

I'm in a strange position regarding an ASHP, and actually chatted with 3 different suppliers yesterday at the Everything Electric show. All 3 told me not to bother getting an ASHP ....... WHAT!!!!!

I explained that I've had a few quotes, including Octopus, at around £13k to £14k. This seems to be because my 2012 EPC doesn't reflect my property well. But when I explain that my gas consumption is low at around 6,000kWh (GCH, DHW and oven), and I'm hoping for 5,000kWh the next 12 months via extended use of A2A unit, they explain the need to size for EPC and Gov grant conditions, not necessarily 'real' consumption. [Edit - apparently my property and all the similar (1,000+) 1930's semi's around me, show up as solid brick walls. We do have small cavities, mine has CWI, but 'solid brick'?}

But from there, they all explained, quite fairly, that the financial payback of my contribution, say £6k would take simply forever.

I also pointed out, that the real payback is the full cost, since my use of the £7,500 grant denies its use for someone else, or some other green scheme.

So for me ..... I'm thinking of replacing the combi with a very small electric boiler, perhaps 4kW or 5kW, and a HW tank.



Moving on to other solutions, green hydrogen is a joke, needing around 6x the green leccy energy of a HP. However, if green methane can be produced from grass, waste etc, then that seems like a good idea to offer an alternative as gas boilers slowly fade away (or perhaps simply better as a long duration storage means, to power gas generation during low RE periods?)

But, I also had a nice chat with the folks at the Tepeo stand, this is a heat battery, with ~40kWh of storage. Not pushing them / heat batteries specifically, but I get where they are coming from, and the product would suit my needs quite well. Their argument is that whilst they have a SCOP of 1 not 3, they can charge up at cheap rate, when RE is high, possibly in excess, and at 1/3rd to 1/4qt the daytime leccy price.

At £6k plus install, it's a hard sell, and they seemed quite downcast. We chatted about Gov policy, and how they, and A2A units don't get any support, but ASHP (and bio-mass) do. Forget the £7.5k subsidy, I'd get one tomorrow with £3k to £5k subsidy.


Not pushing specific products, but I do agree that ASHP's to a wet system/underfloor, might not be the best solution, nor best use of subsidy funding for all properties. That said, for new properties it seems logical, maybe even multiple properties running off a single ground source supply, but 'simple' A2A may work fine for new bugalows, flats, apartments etc.

So from my point of view, no problem with the Gov pushing ASHP's hard, and trying to knock FF gas boilers, but I think the subsidy scheme could work better, and is missing other great solutions?

[dan_b]

Please remember that Dale's alternative proposal is that the UK stops all animal farming, turns all of that grazing pasture land into grass mills, and to harvest that grass to put into biodigesters in order to create biomethane which then gets injected into the gas network to continue to burn the gas to provide space heating.

Which is hardly a sustainable or sensible solution either. Least of all because I can imagine forcing an entire nation to turn vegan overnight will mean 70million vegans all telling eachtother they're vegans will lead to insanity and mass rioting before the week was out.

[Moxi]

Please remember that Dale's alternative proposal is that the UK stops all animal farming, turns all of that grazing pasture land into grass mills, and to harvest that grass to put into biodigesters in order to create biomethane which then gets injected into the gas network to continue to burn the gas to provide space heating.

Which is hardly a sustainable or sensible solution either. Least of all because I can imagine forcing an entire nation to turn vegan overnight will mean 70million vegans all telling eachtother they're vegans will lead to insanity and mass rioting before the week was out.

Hi Dan,

Dale is working his own agenda - hence my initial statement that this is a shades of grey type argument, hes right to say that ASHP's are not the only answer and the governments fixation on them is a detraction to the end goal of reducing our energy demand overall BUT that's where my agreement with him stops - the rest of his ideas are to me an anathema.

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.

I get that HML with a large modest insulted bungalow is getting good CoPs but even then thats good CoPs to maintain the energy input to the bungalow based on average insulation (BTW is 20kWh per year right HML or are you missing one or two digits ?) wouldnt it be better if the government gave him options to better insulate so his nett energy demand dropped rather than giving him a grant to keep the energy demand the same and the costs to him relative to using gas ?

The government needs to provide a selection of resources and maybe spend time making sure the industries are properly regulated and incentivised on results in terms of less power lower costs rather than the free for all selling badly sized badly installed widgets to every one before folding the business and running off with the profits.?

Like i say its not black or white its many shades of grey and probably to complex for a government to manage.

Moxi

[Fintray]

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.
Moxi

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

[Mart]

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.
Moxi

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

[nowty]

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.
Moxi

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

What temp difference between outside and inside is the heat loss of 3052W/h based on ?

[Moxi]

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.
Moxi

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Hi Fintray,
Wow are they ! Then that probably means I haven't done something right in my heatpunk calculations which is a worry ! OR we dont mind living in a cold house ? Using heatpunk a while back I modelled the cottage and added the details to get a heat loss figure for the house - trying to log in again to see if I picked up the wrong number - but earlier I thought that was 3052W/hr lost ........ahhh there it is those figures are based on me heating the cottage for 1 hr per day in the heating season thats why I need to complete the data log using the boiler set to emulate the ASHP flow temp before I finalise my figures because so far this year from February our heating system has typically run for no more than 2 to 3 hours on the colder days, 30minuts for the shoulder days and as we would expect off for most of the summer period although there were a few notable 20 minutes blasts in September and August !

So based on a Feb day recorded results (not fully indicative) those figures I posted before should be 1099kWh mild winter and 1648kWh (cold winter)

I expect these figures to move up as I am expecting December January heating periods to be longer but my heat losses will then be based on actual heating consumption for a "poor" year.

We heat to 20 degrees but dont initiate heating till 16 degrees, we use a single zone (living room) which makes the downstairs comfy and the bedrooms ideal for sleeping (windows upstairs are always cracked open unless theres a westerly slamming the front of the cottage then they are shut because of noise, windows downstairs are locked on the trickle.

If you can see any other areas where my logic is flawed I would appreciate yours and other input to get things closer to actual.

Moxi